


auguries

by goldearring (leoandsnake)



Series: 28/29 [6]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Arguments, Bearding, Bisexual Harry, Bisexuality, Blow Jobs, Bottom Louis, Business Meeting, Canon, Canon Compliant, Canon fic, Coming Out, Cuddling, Deep throat, Developing Relationship, Dirty Talk, Drinking, Established Relationship, Exes, Hand Jobs, Hiatus, Insecurity, Jealousy, Kissing, M/M, OT4, Oral Sex, Phone Sex, References to Drugs, Rimming, Secret Relationship, Smoking, Spanking, Topping from the Bottom, Zayn angst, ass worship, body image issues, business discussions, discussion of Larry as a phenomenon, discussion of marriage, ex talk, fake makeout, harry tries to be above it all, hiatus blues, mom blues, unseen azoffs, yacht party, zayn pain, zouiam dynamics, zouis catfight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-18 03:50:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5897089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leoandsnake/pseuds/goldearring
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Louis laughs again. He enjoys feeling the vibrations in Liam as he sings; when they were very newly together in November and rehearsing for the AMAs, he would sit next to Liam in bed as he sang scales and lay his hands over his chest, like Liam was a cello.</i>
</p><p>Louis goes to tell his mum about him and Liam; meanwhile, Liam deals with an unexpected Zayn visit at home. The band meets to discuss their future with Liam and Louis as a couple, and Louis makes an ill-fated attempt at bearding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	auguries

**Author's Note:**

> this was hard to write just on account of everybody kept doing stuff while i was writing it! actually wrote the part about louis blocking zayn's number before he gave the infamous "some people's numbers have changed" interview... not a very happy premonition

_Lord, it'd be great to find a place we could escape sometime_

_Me and my Isis growing black irises in the sunshine_

_Every version of me dead and buried in the yard outside_

_Sit back and watch the world go by_

 

_Happy to lie back, watch it burn and rust_

_We tried the world, good God, it wasn't for us_

\-- Hozier, “Jackie And Wilson”

 

 

Louis wakes Monday morning in an uncomfortable position, with his arm under his face and his neck craned strangely. He can immediately tell he didn’t sleep well. Fragments of urgent, fevered dreams flit through his mind before leaving him for good.

Someone is patting his thigh.

“ _What_?” he demands.

“Uh, good morning to you too,” Liam says.

“Oh, hey,” he murmurs, rubbing his eyes. “Sorry.”

“Thought you might like a blow job before you hit the road,” Liam says, rubbing at Louis’ cock through his boxers. He’s quite hard.

“Love one,” Louis says, immediately more awake. “Let me piss first.”

He stumbles to the bathroom and does so, missing a little bit. Then he quickly washes his face with cold water and squints at himself in the mirror. He needs a haircut and a shave.

He returns to Liam, pulling his boxers off as he does and dropping them carelessly to the floor. He crawls back onto the bed and Liam immediately pushes him onto his back and drops his head, taking Louis’ cock in his mouth.

Liam sucks him well, with care and a light touch but eagerly enough to really arouse him. Louis finds his mind wandering regardless; finds his heart seizing up with anxiety at the thought of going home. As good as Liam’s mouth feels, he finds himself steadily growing softer and softer, and it gets worse the more frustrated he becomes with himself.

Finally Liam stops and gently strokes Louis’ limp cock like he can get his motor going again if he just touches him the right way. He plays with Louis’ balls. Nothing happens, and Louis presses the heels of his hands into his eyes.

“Fuck,” he says.

“I thought that was a good one,” Liam says, sounding defeated.

“It was, it was,” Louis says. “I just can’t shut my brain off.”

“S’okay,” Liam says. He stretches out against Louis and strokes his hair, pushing it back off his forehead, and kisses him on the cheek. “Hey,” he says. “You could just go have a nice visit with her and not say anything. You don’t have to do this.”

“But I do,” Louis says, and feels stricken. He wants to lie here with Liam forever; he rested so badly that he could easily fall back to sleep if he let himself. He turns and presses his face to Liam’s chest and breathes in the smell of his t-shirt. It smells like Liam’s sweat and fabric softener.

Liam continues stroking his hair. “It’ll be okay no matter what,” he says. “She loves you more than anything.”

“Right,” Louis murmurs.

 

/

 

They putter around having breakfast together. Louis drinks two cups of builder’s tea and sits on a barstool, drumming his fingers on the counter and swinging his legs. Liam, who’s making a frittata, watches him with careful eyes.

“Sure you’re not hungry?” he says. “You’ve got a two hour drive.”

“I’m a bit sick to my stomach,” Louis admits.

“Want some Pepto?”

“No, mum,” Louis says. “I haven’t even got any.”

“Actually, you do now,” Liam says, carefully sliding his spatula under the frittata and flipping it. “I bought you some. And band-aids.”

Normally Louis would find this admission sweetly domestic and a reason to lean over and kiss Liam, or even to get on his knees and suck him off while the frittata burns helplessly in its pan. But right now, all stimuli --  from the bright, soft lights of his kitchen to the sound of cars on the street outside to the presence of Liam to the soft clicking of Watson’s nails on his hardwood floors to the smell of cooking eggs -- feel like a wire brush running along his brain and make him want to smash plates on the floor until the world quiets down.

“Thanks,” he says. “But it wouldn’t help. This is, y’know... all in here.”

He taps the side of his head.

“Just put it out of your mind for now,” Liam says. “If it’s the right time, you’ll know, you know? Like with Harry.”

Louis closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, to avoid snapping at Liam. There’s no reason to, but he can feel himself sinking into one of those _moods_ , where anyone telling him to do something is an attack on him.

“You’re right,” he says stiffly.

He watches Liam, whose brow is furrowed with concentration as he transfers the frittata to a plate. Louis will miss him, and the little nest of togetherness they've built. Since returning from holiday, they’ve been continually turning to each other with passionate descriptions of potential songs, then reluctantly agreeing that it’s too early, they should give it another month or so and let their minds rest more. Even so, the house has started to accumulate scraps of paper with parts of lyrics on them, drafts of song titles, good chord progressions. When Louis went through them the other day, he’d realized how many of their lyrics obliquely referred to each other; that they’d been unwittingly leaving each other little love letters. His heart had swelled with affection.

“I’ll miss you,” he says out loud.

Liam looks up. “I’ll miss you too,” he says, with a bittersweet smile.

“Will you be lonely, hanging around here yourself for a few days?”

Liam shakes his head. “Nooo. I’ve got Watson,” he says.

Louis nods. Sophia had dropped Watson off the other day while Liam was out running errands. She’d kept him over the holiday. Louis had felt strange seeing her. He and Liam don’t discuss that relationship much, which concerns Louis. He was certainly Liam’s rock when things ended with Danielle; he’s always been unfailingly transparent about Eleanor. He often wonders if the emotional overlap is the problem -- if Sophia had sensed that Liam was getting some of his needs met by someone else, if that had been her reason for drawing back, and if asserting his heterosexuality and desperately craving normalcy had been Liam’s subconscious motive for clinging to her past their expiration date.

\-- If it was, in some way, Louis’ fault.

Liam scans his face, noticing his discomfort. “Louis,” he says. “Like I said, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

“Well, I _do_ have to visit my mum, actually,” Louis says, with a weak grin. “I promised.”

“You know what I mean,” Liam says. “And even if you tell her, you don’t have to tell Eleanor.”

“Y’know,” Louis says. “That goes both ways. Just because I’m doing this doesn’t mean _you_ have to as well. There’s no pressure implied.”

Liam swallows a mouthful of food. “Of course, I know.”

“We’ll see how my mum takes it, and then I’ll see about Eleanor,” Louis says. “That’s going to be…” he hesitates. “A different conversation.”

“Yeah,” Liam says. “Know what you mean. When were you going to meet her?”

“Was going to stop around on my way back on Wednesday,” Louis says. “And then we’ll meet the boys Thursday.”

“When does Harry get back from America?”

“Wednesday too.”

Now it’s Liam’s turn to drum his fingers on the counter. “Busy week,” he says.

 

/

 

They pack the car slowly, neither of them wanting Louis to leave. Liam leans over the driver’s side window after Louis has gotten in.

“Got everything?” he says.

“I think I have,” Louis says.

“Got a plan?”

“Sort of,” Louis says. “Was going to get us both drunk and watch some old movies to prime her, like, I don’t know -- _When Harry Met Sally_ , maybe, and that gay one you and I watched.”

“Which one?”

“With the bloke from _Friends_. Tom Selleck.”

“Oh, and Kevin Costner? That one was funny, she’ll like that.”

“I think so,” Louis says. “Right, well, I’m off, Payno.”

He jokingly sticks his hand out the window like they’re concluding a business meeting. Liam grins and gives him a firm handshake.

“Good luck,” he whispers. “Love you.”

“Love you,” Louis says.

Liam pats the side of the car and steps back. Louis drives away, trying to regulate his nausea with deep breaths.

 

/

 

Liam said he wouldn’t be lonely, and he feels like a massive joke for hating the sudden silence of the empty house as soon as he shuts the door behind him.

Watson runs up to him, like he thought Liam had been leaving. Liam scratches him under the collar.

“Nope, buddy,” he says. “It’s all you and me for a few days. Holding down the fort.”

He wanders around, lost for what to do without Louis to bounce ideas off of. He looks at his phone, but is quickly overwhelmed by the number of texts he’s got and how many snaps people have posted just this morning alone. He fires a single text off to Harry asking how New York is and gets an immediate response.

 

_Great xx Love it here in the springtime_

 

 _Why u up???,_ Liam texts back. It’s 7 AM in New York, by his best recollection. He sits down in front of the TV and starts scrolling through Netflix. 

 

_Havent slept yet oooops. went to an after after party. lena dunham was there wouldnt leave me alone_

 

 _Go to sleep!,_ Liam texts back.

 

 _Ok ok_ , says Harry.

 

He leans back against the couch, hands on his chest. He’s wondering if he ought to just go back to bed when the doorbell rings.

“Coming,” Liam yells. He gets up, and Watson skitters in from the other room.

Liam opens the door, expecting to see one of Louis’ London friends, or someone else who’d have the gate code.

It’s Zayn, his hair dyed dark again, looking exhausted in a beaten leather jacket.

His heart drops. Zayn takes a step back, surprised, then looks over Liam's shoulder.

“It’s just me,” Liam says. “What are you doing here? Come in, come in.”

They step into the house together, and Liam immediately goes to the kitchen to rummage for something for Zayn to drink. His face is burning with a mixture of unpleasant surprise and mortification. He racks his brain for any incriminating evidence lying around, but his presence is the only thing he can think of.

“What’m _I_ doing here?” Zayn says. “Louis hasn’t sold you his place, has he?”

His voice is thinner than Liam had remembered it. He sounds worn down and off-kilter.

“I’m staying here while he visits his mum,” Liam says. “I have, uh, I’ve got some meetings in London this week. Want a beer?”

“Fine,” Zayn says.

Liam takes a few more deep breaths before he closes the fridge and crosses the floor to hand Zayn an IPA and an opener.

There’s a soft pop as he gets the cap off. Zayn holds the beer in his hand, examining it but not drinking. “You don’t look pleased to see me, mate,” he says.

“I’m surprised,” Liam says. “Why were you going to drop in on Louis?”

“Well, I’d like to talk to him and he’s blocked my number,” Zayn says, his demeanor going chilly.

“ _What?_ ” Liam demands. He steers Zayn into the living room. They both sit on the sectional. Zayn has a sip of the beer and then rests it between his knees.

“So he didn’t tell you that, then,” Zayn says.

“We don’t sit around and talk about you,” Liam says. “I’ve told you that. I’m not banded with Louis against you.”

Zayn shrugs noncommittally.

Liam sighs. “I can’t believe you were just going to show up and confront him,” he says. “He wouldn’t have let you in.”

“Actually he would have,” Zayn says. “I know ‘im.” He swigs his beer, killing almost half the bottle in one fell swoop.

Liam watches him. “You _knew_ him,” he says.

Zayn smiles without humor and shakes his head. “There it is,” he says. “There’s that rank-closing from you two. Can’t deny it.”

“Oh -- come off it _,_ Zayn,” Liam says, angry now. He stands up. “You hit Louis where it hurt and you did it in public. I’m not going to sit here and bag on him for not wanting to engage anymore.”

Watson is standing in the doorway to the hall, whimpering very softly.

“I’m not mad at you, boy,” Liam calls in a soft voice. “You’re a good boy, Watson, good boy.”

He rounds on Zayn, whose jaw is set in a hard line.

“Why were you calling Louis so much he blocked your number?” Liam says.

“Wasn’t,” Zayn replies. “Was textin’ him. _Barely._ ”

“What were you texting him?”

Zayn rolls his eyes and then pulls his phone out of his jacket pocket, unlocks it, taps a few times and hands it to Liam.

It’s his iMessage with Louis. He’s scrolled up a little. Liam takes a steadying breath and looks at the dates. A bunch of texts from Louis went unresponded to, sent in the days when Zayn left the tour and then the band.

 

_Everything okay??_

 

_Where are you text me_

 

_i had no idea it was this bad,when youre back we can talk_

 

_Zayn please respond_

 

_Just got word were having a meeting about you in 1 hr ? whats happening pick up the phone_

 

_Call me. Right now_

 

_What have you done to us?? Are you joking ????_

 

_Who do you think you are exactly?_

 

_Answer me_

 

_oh fuck you fuck you fuck you just fuck you_

 

_fuck you_

 

_ANSWER MY VMS_

 

_IF YOURE NOT TALKING TO THE REST OF THEM AT LEAST TALK TO ME_

 

_ZAYN_

 

_FUCK YOU !!!!!!!_

 

He scrolls down. Louis hasn’t sent him a single text since those.

 

May 7, 2015, 4:03 AM

 

_Louis i didnt mean that you know how i get_

 

_i was drunj & running my mouth please_

 

_pleae call me_

 

_ill delete the tweets if yo uwant_

 

_call me i dont want it to be like this_

 

_louis youy were my best mate i cant trust anyone anymre_

 

May 10, 2015, 8:39 PM

 

_didnt feel like you actually accepted my apology it felt like you wanted to get me off the phone_

 

_i dont know what you want me to say anymore_

 

_youll never forgive me for leaving_

 

_i just want to have a reall convo you can yell at me if u need to_

 

Nov 1, 2015, 11:10 PM

 

_saw a mystery machine van the other day by the roadside. thought of you_

Read 3:01 PM

 

Thu, April 17, 12:57 AM

 

 _i know you didnt want to talk in front of liam but can i call to talk when youre back at the hotel_ (!) Not Delivered

 

 _why are my texts not sendin_ (!) Not Delivered

 

 _Louis_ (!) Not Delivered

 

 _did you block my number you absolute cunt_ (!) Not Delivered

 

Liam cringes at the last one.

“I didn’t realize that’s what he said when you left,” he says.

Zayn shrugs. “Better than silence.”

“I texted you,” Liam says, handing his phone back. “I said I was sorry I didn’t see it coming and asked if I could do anything to help you. Remember? You never responded to those either.” He tries to keep his tone light and jocular.

“I know. Niall too. But Harry said nothin’,” Zayn says. “Harry hasn’t said a word to me. Not one. Just went an’ changed his number. Honestly? That’s universes worse than ‘fuck you, fuck you’. But this isn’t about Harry.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Liam says, stuffing his hands in his trouser pockets. He rests a foot on the coffee table. “Louis can do whatever he wants. Even if he couldn’t, he would anyway.”

“If we could see each other in person, he’d understand,” Zayn says insistently, holding himself like he’s cold despite the jacket.

Liam remembers what Harry said about Zayn being beyond their help, a mess to be avoided. Like a quagmire. He pushes that out of his mind.

“Maybe,” Liam says. “Would you like me to talk to him?”

Zayn nods fervently. “Please.”

“Okay,” Liam says. “I’m going to tell him you came over. But he’s not going to take it well, and you’ve got to accept that.”

Zayn breathes in deeply. “Already have. I don’t expect anything. Jus’ blind hoping at this point.”

“Want anything else to drink?”

“Water,” Zayn says.

Liam brings him a cold bottle, and Zayn presses it against his forehead before opening it. Liam rings Louis from his recent calls list and leaves the room.

He walks upstairs to Louis’ bedroom and without thinking about it, crawls into the bed they share and lies desolate in the middle of it. He can feel himself developing a tension headache.

Louis picks up. “I’m driving, Payno, what’s going on?”

Liam feels comforted by his voice, but his chest is still tight.

“Yeah, I know, sorry. I have to tell you something you won’t like,” Liam says.

“Everything all right?” Louis says, sounding worried.

“Everything’s okay,” Liam says slowly. “Where are you at right now?”

“I’m hardly a half hour into my trip,” Louis says. “Christ, I thought you were going to be my mum actually, calling to bother me about why I didn’t leave earlier. I’m hitting lunch traffic getting out of London. Bunch of stupid wankers who need to get out of the right lane. What’s wrong, Liam, love?”

“Zayn showed up at your house,” Liam said.

Louis is silent.

“Louis?”

“I’m here. Did you let him in?”

“I didn’t really have a choice.”

“Oh, _Leeyum,_ ” Louis shouts in exasperation, his voice tinny over the phone. Liam sighs.

“He just wants to clear the air --”

“Nooooooo, _no!_ He does _not,_ he wants me to forgive him and clear his conscience for him so he can go make his absolutely rubbish stuffing music in peace --”

“That’s not fair, Louis. That’s not fair to all the years we spent with him, it’s not fair to your relationship.”

“I don’t give a fuck, I don’t need to be fair. Who said life was fair?”

“ _You_ said you needed to see him in person so you could remember he wasn’t a prick you wanted to throttle! _You_ said that. He’s upset, Tommo.”

“About what? Oh, let me guess,” Louis says. “He figured out I blocked his number?”

Liam’s silent.

“Ha, right in one,” Louis says. “Has he been calling me? Texting me?”

“Louis,” Liam says in a low tone.

“Has he, then?”

“Yes. He’s texted you.”

“And what did he say that I haven’t seen? Did he tell you?”

Liam closes his eyes. He wants to start this day all over again, from the beginning.

“He just wanted to talk to you after he called when we were at the pub,” Liam said. “In private.”

“Uh-huh. What else, love.”

Liam heaves out a breath. “Uh, he noticed you blocked him and he texted you that you were a cunt.”

“Ohh, there it is!” Louis crows.

“Louis... Look, I don’t want to fight with you. I’m sorry. You’re driving. I’ll hang up.”

“I’m hands-free and stuck in total gridlock, Liam. Look, God’s sake, I don’t want us to fight either. It has nothing to do with you. I’m frankly sick of Zayn trying to take advantage of your better nature to worm his way back into my life, and we both know it won’t work anyway.”

“What if you’d been home,” Liam says quietly, playing with the fringe of the comforter. “What if you’d seen him in person?”

“I suppose, yeah, I’d talk to him. But when he came to the door and you said I wasn’t there, he should have turned around and left.”

“I invited him in.”

“He should have said _no,_ Liam! He did what he did because he wanted to play us off each other. That’s what he’s been doing for a year, manipulating me. Did he show you that Mystery Machine text he sent, like, a day after Sheffield? That’s what I blocked him for. That was calculated.”

“Or,” Liam says, hearing the embarrassing desperation in his own voice but pressing on regardless, “maybe he was thinking of us, thinking of you, maybe he really misses you...”

“If he wants to sit down with me and have a real honest conversation, I’m game. I invite that. If he would be man enough to sit down and explain himself truly and outright. Calling me a bitch or a cunt, that’s the most real thing he’s said to me since he left and he said one on Twitter where he knew I wouldn’t cut back at him because of the fans, and one after I’d blocked his number. He’s been a coward.”

“Bitchy comments,” Liam says. The phrase is seared into his brain. He’d gone cold when he read that tweet, knowing it was a certain kind of death knell. “Didn’t precisely call you a bitch.”

“Close enough.”

Liam sighs gustily. “I know. I hate that he said that.” He rubs at his face and beard. “I’m lying in our bed right now,” he murmurs. “Sorry, your bed.”

“No, it’s our bed,” Louis says warmly. Liam’s heart skips a beat.

“Wish you were here,” Liam says.

“Me, too... I’ll call you from my mum’s. Listen, talk to Zayn as much as you like, but don’t let him hang ‘round my place forever, aye? And don’t give him too much ammo. He probably doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, but that’s what he’s going to use to manipulate me later.”

“I’ll be careful,” Liam says.

“You usually are. Talk later?”

“Later,” Liam says, and they hang up.

He makes his way down the stairs and returns to Zayn, who’s looking at him warily with dark eyes.

“Hey,” Liam says, and sits. “Wanna watch a movie before you go?”

“Sure, mate. What did Louis say?” Zayn asks, undeterred.

“He said…” Liam laces his fingers together over one knee and considers his answer. “He just really… I mean, you hurt him. Very badly. So he’s kind of in a state, mentally, where like… everything you do is suspect.”

Zayn plays with his empty beer bottle, peeling at the label. He gives Liam a darting, wounded look. “If I could just have a real talk with him…”

“He’ll come around, lad,” Liam says. He lays his hand over Zayn’s forearm and squeezes. “I’m working on him.”

Zayn nods. “So what movie did you have in mind?”

“I’ve just been going through the big ones I missed the last few years,” Liam says. “ _American Hustle_ is next.”

“Sounds good,” Zayn says, and gets up. “Popcorn?”

“In the pantry, I think,” Liam says. He smiles bitterly to himself as Zayn moves around in the kitchen. With just the two of them alone, it almost feels like old times.

 

/

 

Louis feels like he’s aged a few years when he finally gets out of the car in Doncaster.

His nausea is gone, but it’s been overtaken by mental fogginess and a leaded feeling in his guts and extremities. He walks very slowly to his mother’s doorstep.

He knocks a few times and he hears footsteps pounding on the stairs and then loud fiddling with the storm door. The front door busts open and he’s swallowed up in a hug from Lottie and Fizzy, who yell “Louis’ home! Louis’ home!” over and over until their mother appears, beaming and wiping her hands with a dishrag.

“Darling!”

“Mum,” he says, and welcomes her into the hug. They all squeeze each other until they’re near to falling over, and then let go.

“You caught us when we were just heading out, Lou,” says Lottie. Fizzy nods. Louis notices for the first time that they’re both made up and dressed, handbags in tow. 

“‘Scuse me,” he says. “Where are you going that's so important? Your only older brother in the world just arrived. I brought presents!”

“Did you really?” Lottie says excitedly.

“No,” Louis admits. “Not this time, sorry. But there's a load of Our Moment in my car still, if you need a couple more bottles.”

“Oh, God,” Fizzy groans. “I think we're good.”

Louis laughs and pulls her into a headlock and ruffles her hair. “So where all are you going, then?”

“Just out to Manchester for a house party,” Lottie says. “One of Soph’s friends is having it.”

Louis’ stomach jolts at Sophia being mentioned. “You're leaving at _three_ for a party?”

“No,” Jay interjects. “They're meeting Sophia to get ready first, and all that. You know how girls are. But anyway, love, I thought it would be nice for you and I to have more together time this visit anyway. For once Dan’s taken all the little ones to visit with his family, so you and I will have the house to ourselves.”

“Ohhh!” Lottie exclaims at her phone in a non-sequitur. She and Fizzy hunch together squinting at it and begin to whisper intently. Jay and Louis take the moment to slip away past the main stairs, down the hall and into the kitchen. Louis sits at the counter, breathing in the smells of their home, both familiar and unfamiliar to him.

Jay finishes up rinsing some glasses, humming a tune. He waits, shooting off a text to Liam that he's arrived.

Finally she turns to him and smiles in that reassuring but slyly concerned way that seems to be endemic to mums.

“Lou, I actually told them to go,” she says. “The girls, and Dan.”

“What?” Louis says, surprised. “Why?”

“You just sounded so odd on the phone,” Jay said. “I thought something might be wrong.”

Louis’ stomach does another swoop. The slightest indication that he’s slipping up or letting on makes him feel like he’s missed a step on the staircase.

“I didn’t realize I sounded weird. Nothing’s wrong, really,” he says. He hesitates.

Jay watches him.

Louis looks down at his own hands. “There’s something I’d like to talk to you about,” he says.

She sighs. “Have you done something bad?”

Louis shakes his head vehemently. “No.” His heart is thumping away and he feels sick again. His fingertips are tingling.

“Well, out with it, then. What’s the problem?”

“No, let’s enjoy our evening first,” Louis says quickly. “All that can come later. I just really wanted to see you.”

It was the perfect thing to say, and he knows it. Grinning, she comes over to him and cups his face in her hands. “My boy,” she says. “Good on you. I really wanted to see you as well. Fine. Later, then. Can I get you something to eat?”

“I’m okay, mum.”

“Are you sure?” she says. “Well, you do look healthier lately. Maybe just some tea, then?”

“Tea’s fine.”

Louis puts his cheek down on the cool counter as she moves around the kitchen, fetching him a mug and starting the kettle. The marble is soothing; he takes deep breaths the way Harry taught him once, a long time ago. His nerves start to settle, but he knows they’ll spike again at any provocation.

He misses Liam. Liam knows exactly how to comfort him. After Eleanor and Zayn, when he was prone to ridiculous 3 A.M. bursts of energy that made him feel like his heart was going to beat straight out of his chest and always ended in crying jags, that made giant hotel rooms feel as small and claustrophobic as shoeboxes, Liam was the person he would call to come hold him or talk to him until he could sleep. Sometimes Liam would cry too, and when the mood began to lift they would gently tease each other.

“You drip,” Louis would say with tears streaming down his own cheeks, “who fucking cries?” Liam would laugh and laugh, wiping his face.

And then they would get into Louis’ bed and cuddle up close, not thinking anything of it back then. Liam would wrap his arms around Louis and rub gentle circles on his back, and Louis’ eyes would slowly shut as he grew to feel safe again.

The kettle begins to shriek. Louis sits up, blinking hard against the dark spots swimming in his vision.

“All right?” his mother asks, glancing at him. “Thought you fell asleep there.”

“Slept like shit last night,” Louis admits.

“Ohhh, angel,” Jay clucks at him. “I’ll make your tea strong, then.”

 

/

 

Louis spends the next few hours getting well into a bottle of wine with his mum and being caught up by her on all the new milestones the twins have reached and any family gossip he's missed.

During _When Harry Met Sally_ he texts Liam _Has zayn gone yet??_

Louis finds himself unable to concentrate on the movie as he waits for a response, bouncing his leg up and down and yawning. Jay looks over at him.

“So what is it that you wanted to tell me?” she says.

Louis feels his heartbeat stutter again. “Later,” he says.

“Louis, you look so bloody preoccupied. I don't know why you just won't come out with it. It's _me_ , for heaven's sake.”

He wants to tell her so badly, he can feel it sitting in his throat. It's like vomit that he has to hold down. He worries it will happen again like it did with Harry, where it just flies out of his mouth.

Louis sets his glass of wine very firmly on the coffee table. In the background, the movie continues; it's the charades scene. Louis forces himself to look engrossed.

His phone buzzes on his thigh.

 _Yeah hes been gone i put him in a taxi hrs ago. call me?_ , Liam says.

He immediately reaches to respond.

“Louis,” Jay says. “Please, with the phone.”

“Just one second, mum.”

 _Cant right now. why whats up_ , he texts back.

 

 _Did you tell her??_ , Liam says.

 

_Not yet!! ill ring when I do_

 

Annoyed, Louis flings his phone across the couch where it falls facedown on a pillow. Jay smiles. “Good boy,” she says.

Louis leans forward and picks his wine glass back up, then fills it to the top.

 

/

 

“Louis.”

He wakes to his mother standing over him, shaking his arm.

“You dozed off there,” Jay says. “Missed the end of the movie.”

“Ohh,” Louis says, rubbing his eyes. He’s woozy from sleep and the wine. “Finally get together, don’t they? On New Year’s?”

“Yes, that’s the general gist of it.”

He looks up at her, squinting in the low light. “Come have a smoke with me?”

She hesitates. “I shouldn’t, really…”

“C’mon, mum. For old time’s sake.”

Jay laughs. “I never smoked with you!”

“No, but you smoked _at_ me sometimes, didn’t ya?”

“Ohhh, never, you silly goose. I was always _very_ careful about that. And I wish you’d quit.”

“Well,” he says, “I’m not quitting tonight, so have one with me.”

Louis leans over to grab his jacket and pulls a new pack out, tapping it on his palm and looking up at her hopefully.

She sighs and nods, and he follows her out into the muggy May air.

Louis slides the back door shut behind them and hands her a smoke, leaning on the wall. His body feels heavy from the wine, from his feet to his eyelids. Out here it’s foggy and dreamlike, and he feels close to his childhood, close to the boy he used to be a million years ago.

“About what I wanted to tell you,” he starts, and lights his cigarette, then hers. Jay looks at him seriously, her face lit from underneath.

Louis takes a drag. “Let’s play hypotheticals,” he says. His heartbeat quickens and he digs his nails into his palm, steeling himself against his nerves.

Jay winces. “Oh, splendid. You maintain you haven’t done anything, right? Committed no crimes? No _videos_ are about to be released?”

“No, not this time,” Louis says, laughing so hard he coughs.

She eyeballs him. “Okay, good. I was afraid someone might have got their hands on a sex tape or something.”

“Oh, no, mum, god’s sake. I haven’t let anybody make a sex tape of me.”

“That you _know_ of.”

“Well, I suppose we’ll find out,” Louis says. “But that isn’t what I’ve got to tell you.”

“Okay, so go on, then.”

Jay blows out a ring of smoke.

“So,” Louis says. “Let’s say I was dating somebody, and it was sort of somebody you really wouldn’t expect me to date and it might be a bit problematic for me, really.”

He says it all in a quick rush.

His mother shifts her weight from one foot to the other, ashing her cig. “Like… an older woman, or something?”

“No, not an older woman.”

She eyeballs him. “A young one? Because you’re too old now to fiddle around with eighteen year olds. Anyone younger’n I’ll have your head through a wall.”

“Oh, _Christ_ , mum,” he says in exasperation. “You know I wouldn’t.”

“Well,” she says. “I don’t know what you could be talking about. Someone not at all famous? Someone a little too famous?”

“No…”

Jay flicks her cigarette. Louis adjusts his position on the wall, stretching his legs out. His heart is beating fast enough now to make him nauseous again, and he smokes more quickly and with larger drags, forcing nicotine into himself.

“Oh, goodness,” she exclaims. “It isn’t Perrie, is it?”

“Jesus, mum!”

“Well, you’ve always liked her,” Jay says matter-of-factly.

“As a _person._ ” Louis looks up at the dark sky. He can hardly see any stars tonight. “She’s a friend.”

“Is it another ex of a friend, then?”

“No exes,” he says. He swallows past the lump in his throat.

“Louis, my darling.” Jay stares him down. “Are you going to make me play twenty questions all night?”

“Maybe,” he says. He hears how obstinate he sounds, knows it will annoy her, but can’t think of another way to get it out.

“Is it a girl who’s not much of a looker?”

Louis nearly chokes on his cigarette. “Jesus Christ, mum.”

“Well, I’m out of guesses here!”

He sucks in a shaky breath. “Broaden your guesses a bit.”

“Okay,” she says. “A _married_ woman, then?”

He shakes his head.

“One in a relationship, at least?”

“No,” Louis says.

“A religious nut!” Jay says, clearly thinking she’s onto something. “Like a Scientologist!”

“Mum, fuck’s sake,” Louis says. He leans into his drunken bravado and steamrolls ahead, not allowing any time for the quicksand of fear to stop him and suck him down. “Do you remember that conversation we had, when I was maybe fifteen?”

“Oh, Lord, love,” Jay says. “Which one? I had to have quite a lot of talks with you ‘round that time.”

“The one about Stan,” he says.

Jay’s face goes through a distinct series of emotions as he watches her queasily, his palms going clammier and clammier. First she looks confused, then realization breaks across her face; after this, her eyes rove back and forth over him and her eyebrows knit. She gasps. His heart clenches.

“ _Louis_ ,” she cries out. “No, but you _aren’t!_ You aren’t! I thought you might have been, but that was _years_ ago, near on ten years ago --”

“I’m not,” he says, heaving a sigh, knowing the hardest part will be what he still has yet to say. “Mum, of course I’m not _gay_ , don’t be daft.”

“Then what are you saying to me?”

Jay sucks in air; she’s let her cigarette burn too long and it scorched her finger. She drops it on the damp grass and grinds it with her heel. Louis drops his own and does the same. He immediately misses it when it’s gone, misses the reassuring presence in his hand. He wishes he could light another, but he left the pack in the house.

“I’m saying,” he says. “You can be with one man without being _gay_ , or anything.”

Jay swears, holding her burned finger.

“Stick it in your mouth, mum.”

“Louis, you don’t put a _wound_ into your bacteria-filled mouth.”

“Well, let’s get you some ice, then.”

“Water. You just use water. It’s fine, love, I’m fine. Keep talking. One man, you said? And you're saying this, what, out of personal experience?”

Louis scuffs the bottom of his trainer back and forth. “Yeah,” he says, finally. “I am.”

Jay stares at him. “The idea that you've been with _any_ man…”

She looks skyward and shakes her head, as if appealing to God himself.

“My darling,” she murmurs. “My little boy… How? Since when?”

He swallows. “A few months ago.”

“Months?” she says, looking shocked. “Then this isn’t like, an experiment? A fling?”

Louis shrugs. “Don’t think so.”

“You’re not _attracted_ to boys,” she insists. “Or so you’ve always said! You're just flamboyant and flirty...”

“I’d still say that’s true for the most part.”

“So what, then? It’s just sort of a very close friendship, this? That got a bit off course, maybe?”

Louis smiles to himself. He thinks of Liam, of how much he loves him, and he feels his pulse slowing down some from where it’s skyrocketed up.

“Yes and no,” he says.

“No? What d’you mean, no?”

Louis grits his teeth and closes his eyes. “We've continued, ah… continued having sex,” he says, after a long pause. “We're... together.”

Jay lets out a long breath. “Oh, _Louis_ …”

“I know. I know, mum. That isn’t the worst of it.”

“What are you playing at? What’s the worst of it?”

She turns around and walks away from him, pacing in the grass, and runs her hands through her hair. Louis recognizes his own mannerisms of distress in her and his heart goes out to her. He feels somehow removed from the situation, like most of his emotions have excused themselves and gone on a day trip and he’s just here with his fear and regret, his sick stomach and his trembling fingers.

“It’s someone you know,” he calls to her.

Jay sighs. “Tell me it’s not one of your friends from around here.”

“No, mum,” Louis says, his pulse thudding in his ears. “It’s someone famous.”

Jay turns. “Louis,” she says, wheedling. She comes back to him, her plaintive face gaining a yellow cast under the harsh porch light. Louis sighs with exhaustion.

“Someone _famous?_ God, haven’t you had a lifetime’s worth of trouble with this Larry business? Wasn’t that awful enough for all of us? You'll just encourage them!”

“Oh, chrissake,” he says, angry now. “First of all, no one’s got to know about this beyond a small circle. So remember that, chiefly. Second of all, if they could believe everything they believed when I was with Eleanor, when I’d done nothing that could be interpreted as genuinely not being heterosexual, what does it even matter now? They’ll believe it no matter what! And you don’t need to lecture _me_ how awful it’s been, mum!”

Jay shakes her head and shakes her head. “Fine. Who is it? Please, tell me it’s not that Nick Grimshaw?”

Louis has a laugh at that, which helps to break the tension. “No, God no.”

“I’m at a loss,” Jay says. “Who do I know that you could ever be with? Just tell me, darling. I promise I’m not angry with you. This is just a shock. Just tell me.”

Louis closes his eyes again, shutting the world out, and slides down the wall so he’s sitting. He hears Jay crouch in front of him.

He opens his eyes and looks at her. She scans his face carefully.

“Please just tell me,” she begs. “Louis, you’re frightening me. If you could see how you look right now…”

“It’s someone I’m very close with,” he says, his reedy voice barely a whisper. “Somebody you love. Someone I see all the time.”

Jay stares at him, shaking her head, uncomprehending.

He summons up all the grit he has, all the blind courage and stupid willfulness that’s in him.

“It’s Liam,” he finally says. “Payno.”

Jay draws back from him. She squints. Louis tries to control his breathing.

“What do you mean?” she says. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s Liam, mum.” Louis sounds utterly resigned as he says it. “It’s Liam I’m with.”

Jay’s face slowly falls; her eyes grow large and round.

“This is some sort of prank, then?” she demands. “Some rather shit joke?”

“No. No prank, I promise.”

She stares, aghast.

“Mum,” Louis implores her. “Look at my face. Look at me. _I love him,”_ he says, giving each word careful emphasis. “I’m in love with Liam.”

There’s a terrible moment of silence between them. The moment stretches and stretches out, pulling itself taut until it snaps.

“No,” Jay says. She buries her face in her hands. “Oh my god, no, Louis, my love, you dolt, what have you done? Someone in the _band_? This is just about the worst it could be! Have you heard a single thing I just said? About the Larry people, about _anything_?”

“You said you wouldn’t get mad,” Louis says weakly. “You promised, mum.”

Jay looks at him and coughs out a laugh. Her eyes are tearing up. “Oh, sweetheart,” she says mournfully. “Oh, my precious boy. How do you get yourself into these messes?”

“I _may_ be a bit impulsive,” Louis says. He’s tearing up a bit too. The headiness of relief is overwhelming him. Between that and the wine, he feels he could pass out.

“I just don’t understand,” she says. “You’re not gay. _Liam’s_ not gay.”

“No.”

“He likes girls.”

“There’s always wiggle room, mum.”

“Well, _of course,_ ” she says impatiently. “I think I know a little about these things, it’s 2016. I know there’s a… a spectrum. I know how close you are with him. But how do you become attracted to someone after five years? I can’t even fathom it.”

“Dunno,” he says. “If someone could explain it to me, that would be fantastic. I just feel like it grew so slowly and one day it knocked me ‘round the head and it suddenly felt like the most obvious thing in the world. And I couldn’t fight it.”

Jay looks at him like maybe she’s understanding.

“I used to be quite afraid of this,” she says. “You were always so loving with your boys. I worried you might go too far one day and get things muddled with someone.”

“It's more than being muddled, mum. I just… I dunno,” Louis says. “It is what it is.”

He leans his head back against the brick of the house. He feels like he’s just run a marathon. Jay sits down next to him, and they spend some time riding a wave of silence, looking up at the moon.

“If you had to do this, you picked well,” she says, after a while.

“Hmm?” Louis says.

“You picked a good one,” Jay says. “Liam. Absolutely adores you, he does. Thinks the sun shines out of your arse.”

“Doesn’t it?”

She laughs and pinches him.

 

/

 

They come back into the house with the slow movements of much older people. Lottie and Fiz haven’t returned yet, and the house is a veritable mausoleum. Louis walks around flicking all the lights on.

“Are you a major shareholder in the electric company, now?” his mother calls from the kitchen. “Is that your hiatus gig?”

“Mum,” he says, laughing. “I will go get my wallet and you can have every single dollar that’s in it...”

Jay appears in the doorway of the sitting room. “You always did hate a dark house.”

“It’s creepy,” Louis says. “Um… I’m going to turn in, if you don’t mind.”

She sighs heavily. “Go ahead. We can talk tomorrow. I need some time to process.”

Louis nods. “I’m sorry,” he says again.

“Don’t apologize,” Jay says. “I can’t bear to hear you apologize over this.”

He looks down and folds his arms. “Okay, mum.”

Jay comes to him and hugs him, kissing his head. “Get some sleep.”

Louis climbs the stairs wearily, stopping at the top and surveying the dark and empty street outside from the large transom window over their front door. It’s only eleven, but it feels like it could be four or five.

He brushes his teeth quickly and falls into bed, pulling his clothes off only after he’s slid under the covers. His body is spent, but his brain continues buzzing.

Louis grabs his phone and rings Liam without even thinking about it. Liam picks up fast, like he was waiting.

“Hi there,” Liam says.

Louis’ spirits instantly rise, hearing his voice. “Hey.”

“You all right?”

“I told her,” Louis says, letting a few tears escape. His voice sounds raw. “I told her all of it.”

“Oh, Louis. How was it? Is it okay?” Liam sounds like a worried little boy. Louis feels a pang of fondness for him.

“It’s okay, I think. She was confused... I can’t exactly blame her.”

“What did you tell her?”

Louis draws a shaky breath and rolls over in bed so he’s lying on his stomach. He pushes his hair out of his eyes. “I told her I was with a man… that we were having sex. Then I worked up to that it was you. And I said that I was in love with you.”

“All right... so what’d she say?”

Louis shrugs even though Liam can’t see him. “She said the same sort of things Harry said, I s’pose. _You’re not gay, he’s not gay. Why now. Why at all. How did this happen._ ” He says the last one in a mock stern and grave tone that makes Liam laugh.

“It’s still funny, ‘cos like,” Liam says. “I was getting afraid for a while that it was painfully obvious. It felt like all I did was stare at you and touch you and like, look to you all the time. It felt like, oh my god, a blind dog’d probably know.”

“Yeah, and Niall said he sort of knew, so that’s a bit alarming, innit? I guess he was spending more time with us than anybody, and he’s sharper than we give him credit for. ‘Cos I thought a few times that maybe when we told Harry he’d say that he already had figured it out, or something, but no.” Louis rolls onto his back again and looks at the ceiling. “I miss you, is that stupid? I’ve been gone for one day.”

“I miss you, too,” Liam says. “I’ve been going a little mad here. After Zayn left I went and bought a load of kitchen crap, which is coming to your place, so, sorry about that. And then I watched all the rest of _Master Of None_... which is funny, I wouldn’t mind watching it over again with you. And then I watched like all of Aziz’s standups and I’ve been playing catch with Watson for about half an hour and I think he’s a bit tired of me now.”

Louis likes just hearing him ramble on. He slides his hand into his boxers and starts absent-mindedly playing with his cock.

“Go on…” he says, his arousal obvious in his voice.

He hears Liam laugh. “Are you going to jack off to me talking about my stupid day?”

“I’ll jack off to you saying whatever you like,” Louis says. “Just not going to be able to sleep if I don’t, I can tell. Why don’t you do yourself as well, love?”

“Hold on,” Liam says, and Louis can hear him fumbling. “Okay. What do I say?”

“What would we be doing if I was there?”

“Blowing each other, probably?”

“Liam,” Louis says impatiently. “Get into the theatrical spirit of it, please.”

Liam chuckles. “Okay.”

Louis hears Liam’s breath hitch as he starts touching himself, and it makes Louis’ own cock harder. He bites his lip.

“You just got home,” Liam says, sounding throaty. “I meet you at the door. We go upstairs. I throw you down on the bed, on your back.”

“Ahh,” Louis gasps. “Yeah, yeah.”

“I’m kissing you all over,” Liam murmurs. “I’m kissing your hips and thighs and around your cock. And I’m licking your cock and touching you, stroking you.”

Louis jerks himself more urgently, with more energy.

“I start fingering you…”

“Ohhh… fuck. Yeah, good, good.”

“I finger you,” Liam says, his own voice breathier. “And you’re grabbing all over me and clawing me. You’re getting so wet --”

There’s a pause, and they both laugh.

“Sorry, force of habit. You’re not getting wet,” Liam says.

“I could get wet,” Louis breathes. “It’s just talk, Liam, it’s made up.”

Liam clears his throat. “God, I love how you sound.”

“I’m wet, I’m so wet for your cock. Keep fingering me. Fuck me, fuck me…”

“Louis…” Liam moans.

“Fuck me, Liam.” He finds himself wishing he had lube to finger himself with.

“Okay, okay... I pick you up off the bed, I drag you to the wall. I slam you against the wall.”

“Yeah you do,” Louis gasps. His hand feels so good on himself; his mind is blissfully blank.

“I hold you up against the wall and I fuck you. You’ve got your legs around my waist. I’m pulling your hair, so hard you yell, but you love it…”

“Good, good,” Louis groans, squeezing his eyes shut. He’s almost there.

“I come in you and then you go and sit on the bed and I get on my knees on the floor and I suck you, I deep throat you until I’m gagging on you --”

“ _Oh_ yeah…”

“I almost choke on you and you come all over my face, in my mouth and on my lips…”

Louis does come then, a moment after. He quickly wipes up with a towel and then lies there panting, riding the high of orgasm, stroking his still-sensitive cock and wiping sweat from his brow.

“Still there?” Liam says.

“I’m here, love, did you finish?”

“Not yet,” Liam says. His voice is low like he’s going to come soon. “One moment…”

About half a minute later Louis hears him gasping. He presses the phone harder to his ear, in desperation to hear Liam better. Then they both lie there without talking, just listening to each other breathe hard.

“You’re brave, lad,” Liam says. “What you did today. I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks,” Louis says, his voice small. He’s so tired he’s drifting in and out of awareness.

“I love you.”

“Love you so much, Liam,” Louis murmurs. He falls asleep a few moments later, without hanging up the phone.

 

/

 

The morning dawns chilly and clear in London. Liam takes his coffee out on the balcony and sits in his robe, listening to the street noise below. His phone dings continuously with texts.

Liam reaches for it, about to turn do not disturb on, when it begins to ring.

It’s Louis’ mum. He picks up near instantly, fumbling the phone.

“Hello?” he says. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes, Liam, everything is fine,” Jay says, sounding amused.

His nerves settle back down, but he’s still on edge. “Um... good morning, Mrs Deakin,” he says.

“Oh, good God, Liam, since when do you ever call me _that?_ Louis has filled you in, then, has he?”

Liam winces. “Yeah, he has.”

“Well, I don’t want to drag this conversation out more than necessary --”

“I’m…” Liam isn’t sure what he means or wants to say. “I’m sorry.”

“An apology is not necessary or requested.”

“Okay. Thank you, Jay.”

“So I’ve a question -- who else knows?”

“Just the rest of the boys,” Liam says. “Not, y’know, not including Zayn.”

He feels himself itching for a cigarette. He’s been trying to quit. He downs the dregs of his coffee.

“That’s _it_?” Jay says. “Well, how long has this been going on?”

Liam chews on his lip. “What, did Louis not say?”

“No, he didn’t tell me all that much.”

“Oh, well.” He swallows. “I don’t know what all I should be telling you, then. But it’s been since last November.”

“November? Did I hear that right?”

Liam gets up and walks into the house, looking for cigarettes. “Yes, you did, ma’am.”

“ _Ma’am?_ Liam.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” he exclaims, pawing through the pockets of various jeans that lie in a pile on the bedroom floor and making a mental note to tell Louis to do his goddamn laundry.

“Please stop apologizing!”

“I’m sorry! … Fuck!”

“Didn’t you and Sophia split up in _October?”_

He winces. “Yes.”

“Liam.”

“Yes, Jay.”

Liam finds a half-empty pack of Louis’ and grabs a lighter, returning to the balcony. He takes a long, agitated drag.

“That seems a bit iffy, to me, date-wise. Now please keep in mind, I’m speaking to you as Louis’ protective mother and not your fellow adult who cares about you very much and thinks the world of you. I’m putting that particular hat aside for a moment.”

“Well,” Liam says, blowing out smoke. “I don’t quite know what to say about the Sophia thing. It all just sort of happened and it got jumbled together. I was really in love with her,” he says, and trails off.

“I know, Liam.”

“So… and Louis was there and we’ve always helped each other through that sort of thing and we really leaned on each other when Zayn left.”

“Yes, of course.”

“And I don’t know,” Liam says. It’s difficult for him to say any of this; the words feel dragged out of him. He’s left many feelings from 2015 unexamined, or had put them away for later. Dragging them out is scary and disorienting. “I feel like I was almost… like, in love with two people at once for a bit? I was torn up over her, but at the same time, I had this thing that I couldn’t deny any longer and I sort of just finally gave myself over to it and…”

He rests for a beat and blinks. An ambulance siren wails in the distance. Liam fleetingly wonders where it’s going, who it’s going to.

“And here we are,” he says, finally. “I am over Sophia, really.”

“Right. Yet I hear from Lottie that you’ve been avoiding her.”

“She hurt my pride,” Liam says. “I had big plans for us that she just didn’t have. Maybe I only made big plans because it felt like the world was falling down ‘round me. I don’t know. But it’s just my pride.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“Okay. Thank you for the honest talk. Louis wouldn't tell me any of this, you know.”

“I’m not sure how much of it he’s aware of,” Liam says.

“Oh, I think you’d be surprised,” Jay says. “But he likes to protect you. Remember that.”

 

/

 

When Louis finally appears downstairs he walks with the air of a guilty man. He’s hungover and slept fitfully but dreamlessly. As he gets himself a cup of tea, Jay seeks out his eye contact from her seat at the table, and he studiously ignores her. In the harsh light of day, he’s having plenty of regrets about telling her.

He knows he did the right thing for the long term, but in the moment, it feels like he’s marching himself on an idiot path to nowhere. The more people who know, the more light is thrown on their relationship; the more obvious it is to him that maybe it hasn’t been entirely logical for them to take the course they have.

Louis wonders if Niall really was right, that they should have just somehow suffered their longing for each other quietly and never acted on it. He wonders if Liam would have acted, if he never had. He tries to imagine a world in which Liam snogged him and he hadn’t reciprocated. He can’t.

“Are you quite all right over there, Louis?” Lottie calls. “You’ve been staring at your tea for ages.”

“Fine,” he says, rubbing at his nose with the back of his hand. “I’m fine.”

Louis sits at the head of the table where Dan usually does and takes the sports section of the paper from Jay, who smiles at him with worried eyes.

 

/

 

A rep calls at noon.

“What's the story on these pap photos?” she says. Her name is Hattie; she joined their team after the hiatus began and so hasn't had much to do or much interaction with them. All Louis knows is she also works with Little Mix and likes West Ham.

“Don't know,” Louis says. He's sitting outside, smoking a joint he'd brought with him in case of he experienced the exact type of anxiety he's suffering from right now. The kind that fills your chest and throat like so much cotton. “What photos?”

Louis’ heart sped up just at seeing her name light up his phone, but he knows for a fact he and Liam have never been photographed doing anything untoward, so he quickly settles on the idea that someone has just come out with photos they'd been sitting on of him with hands up someone's skirt, or something.

“I've just texted you a link,” she says. “Have a look for me.”

Louis navigates out of the call and opens the link. It goes to a Daily Mail article entitled “ONE DIRECTION BACHELOR PALS LOUIS AND LIAM: LIVING TOGETHER?”

His stomach lurches. He scrolls down to see grainy photos of Liam seeing him off and then going back inside his house. He swears quietly. They're anything but incriminating, especially down to the stupidly formal handshake, but it's a bad omen all the same.

Phrases jump out at him. _“Since splitting with fashion plate Eleanor Calder, Tomlinson hasn't had a steady girlfriend in over a year, instead opting for a string of flings...” “Payne split up with his old school pal, gorgeous brunette Sophia Smith, in October, and hasn't been confirmed to have any relationships since. Sources close to the band have said that Payne was devastated over the breakup....” “... this would mark the second time Tomlinson has moved in with a band member, after living with Harry Styles briefly early on in the band’s career...” “Payne and Tomlinson, the core writers for the band, have said they would continue to pen songs together throughout the hiatus...”_

Louis is struck by a flash of inspiration. He returns to the call.

“Hey, Hattie.”

“Hi, Louis. So what's up?”

“Ah --” he takes a drag off the joint . “Well, I didn't want to make a big thing of it, but Liam’s moved in with me for a bit, since he hasn't got a place in London and he's taking a lot of meetings there. And we've been writing together quite a bit,” he says with emphasis. “So it's been good for us that way.”

Louis quietly takes in a deep breath. Hattie sighs.

“You've got to tell us about that sort of thing,” she says.

“I know, I know.”

“Addressing this comfortable bachelor thing… We don't like that. It leaves your image stagnant and encourages the conspiracy theorists. Got any girls in your life? Anyone you might, ah, promote in status?”

Louis taps his foot and rocks back and forth. Unsure how to answer, he takes a final hit of the joint and then disposes of it. “Not really.”

“Okay, no problem. In that case, it might be good if we could see you out at some clubs, and also, try to find a date for the VMAs.”

“That's _months_ away.”

“Exactly, so gives you plenty of time,” she says. He can hear her clicking a pen over and over. “I have a few names of interested parties. All very nice up-and-comers.”

“Yeah, I don't want to hear them right now.”

“Suit yourself,” Hattie says. “But the string of one-night-stands thing won't play in the longterm, Louis. And you haven't actually even been seen out on the town in few months, either. So it’s a bit of an odd time for you.”

“Let's back off me, all right?” Louis says, agitated, steeling himself against a head rush from the pot. He uses his free hand to rub at his temples. “It’s my business whether or not I see anybody.”

“I understand sometimes you want a break from dating. God knows we've all been there. I'm just saying, we all have to make compromises if we're getting Harry out in the fall,” she says. “If I had my way, the rest of you would each be cozily shacked up with the hottest girls your age in Hollywood at the time he comes out.”

“I'm aware.”

“I wish one of you would just get engaged over this hiatus,” Hattie sighs. “Fans eat that up. Jesy has _skyrocketed_ in popularity of late.”

“Right,” Louis says drily. “And that worked out so well for us last time.”

“Okay, point taken, meow. But Zayn wasn't exactly… ah, stable.”

“Tell Harry to get engaged,” Louis said. “Have him and Frank Ocean get together.”

“And then they could drop albums at the same time,” Hattie said. “Or drop an album together! Fantastic stuff. Maybe you should do this job.”

“What, public relations?” Louis says. “Not vastly complicated, is it?”

Hattie laughs. “Yeah, cheers, Louis. And thanks for clearing that up for me, I’ll put out a statement. Now, go to a club, please?”

“Yeah, all right...”

She hangs up on him. Louis sighs, exasperated, and turns around and kicks the wall. He wishes he had a football on him, but he'd probably send it sailing into someone else's yard.

It's no one’s fault, he knows that. No one has any idea about them, and if they did, it would be the last thing they expected. Harry has been dutifully laying the groundwork to come out for ages now, and he deserves to do so without a hitch.

Louis knows all this. He has no interest in showing the entire world his relationship with Liam, in having his every public action picked over, in ever again enduring the same entitled scrutiny that slowly rotted away at his relationship with Eleanor, with the added fun of virulent accusations of sin and sodomy and a decline in sales. 

But he has no interest in lying, either. It's distasteful and irritating to him to bite his tongue or hold back the truth in any way. In a world where he and Liam had just been school pals or met on a set, and had never gotten famous, he'd tell anyone who cared to hear about Liam, and if any pricks from the neighborhood wanted to call them faggots he would thoroughly trounce them and stuff them in a rubbish bin. To him, that's the natural order of things -- not going on a club and dutifully dancing on hot girls just to be photographed doing it, enjoying himself a little but mostly longing to go home and settle in bed with Liam and together demolish a pint of ice cream while watching _Ice Road Truckers._

Louis heads back inside.

“Louis,” his mother calls from the other room. “Who was that?”

“No one, mum,” he says, rummaging in the fridge for food and coming up only with cold cuts. He sighs and starts making a sandwich.

“Okay, well, the girls would like to play a game of Scrabble or something.”

“Sure,” he calls back. “I've just got to make another call first.”

Louis hurries upstairs with the sandwich, dialing his phone. It rings and rings. He's expecting to go to voicemail when Harry picks up.

“Hey you,” Harry says. “Is this the ‘I've come out to Jay’ call?”

“I didn't come out as anything,” Louis says through a mouthful of sandwich. “M’straight.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Harry says cheerfully.

“What are you so glib about?” Louis says. He picks up a hoodie he’d packed and sniffs the armpit, only to recoil from the BO. Then he sees it has a dried come stain on it as well and shakes his head at himself.

“Just finished morning meditation, you caught me at a good time. I'm quite tapped in.”

“Right,” Louis says, doing his best not to roll his eyes. “Well, yeah, anyways, I did tell my mum, but I'm calling because Hattie just called me.”

“Oh, was it the Daily Mail? Niall sent me that, with a load of exclamation points.”

“Has Liam not seen it?”

“Liam probably hasn't seen anything yet today. He snapped me his TV just now and he was rewatching a basketball game from a year ago. I’ll text him when we hang up.”

“So should I be worried?” Louis says, sitting down on the edge of his bed.

“Noooo… why? What did she say?”

“Nothing, didn't even imply that people were guessing at anything improper between me and Liam. Just asked what the story was. I said he was staying with me for a bit and we were working on writing… I think it was a pretty easy dodge. I’ve got to go out for a few nights, but that’s all.”

“I don’t think you have to worry.”

“It just feels like the beginning of the end, somehow,” Louis says. “Telling Niall, telling you, telling my mum, Hattie calling me about him. Feels like things are spinning out of control.”

“That's why we've got to plan on Thursday. Lou, trust me, it can be done. I've been sleeping with men for three years and the only person I've really ever been accused of sleeping with is _you_.”

Louis has a good, bittersweet laugh at that.

“You're feeling vulnerable and weird ‘cos you've been telling people,” Harry says. “When I told my mum and Gemma, I felt like suddenly everyone could see it on my face... but I only felt that way because they mean so much to me, like your mum and us do to you. It takes a while for that shock to wear off, but it does.”

To his surprise, Louis is calmed by this. “That actually makes sense,” he says.

“Good, that's good to hear,” Harry says. Louis can hear his smile.

“I'm sorry I was a prick in Hawaii,” Louis says.

“Nooo... I'm sorry you're going through a hard time, Lou.”

Louis could cry, then, if he let himself. Instead he digs his nails into his palm. “I'll live. Um... so by the way, Zayn apparently came by my place yesterday, after I left.”

“Without calling?” Harry’s voice slides from yoga instructor to annoyed mum.

“Well, to be fair, I have blocked his number.”

“Ohhh,” Harry says. He snorts. “So you’re as bad as I am, then.”

“Apparently Liam let him in and just, y’know, turned into a knob, indulging Zayn’s sob story about _evil Louis won’t talk to me, can’t imagine why that is_ …”

Harry laughs. “You two ought to talk things out, though.”

“I know we should, but, like, _hypocritical,_ Haz,” Louis says.

“I mean… I’ve got nothing to say to him, as he hasn’t even tried to engage with me.”

“Aye, well, look how chilly you’ve been. Zebras, an’ all that.”

Harry sighs in a way that’s both wistful and resigned.

“I stay sane by protecting myself from toxicity,” he says. “If that makes me chilly...”

“I stay sane by smoking massive amounts of weed,” Louis says. “So that doesn’t help me solve much, here.”

“You could shut Zayn up in a closet with you and hotbox it until you’re both weeping and apologizing,” Harry says. “Then, you know, speak to him only on birthdays and holidays for the rest of your life and otherwise put it out of your head.”

“Cheers,” Louis says. “Not doable. Especially since Liam insists on being in the middle of us.”

“Right,” Harry says. “Listen, I know you’re still in the honeymoon stage…”

Louis crosses his legs and starts jiggling one. “Don’t know if I want to get onto this topic, Haz.”

“Let me just say one thing. It’s going to be a problem later if you don’t make it clear to Liam that we are never again going to have the kind of relationship with Zayn that we did. Himself included.”

Louis feels an ache deep in his chest, hearing that. He blows out some air. “Tall order for one person.”

“You need to have boundaries. Even with Liam. You can’t live inside each other. Like, just telling you that from personal experience with you.”

Louis lies back against his bed. His ears burn with embarrassment. “That’s a shitty thing to say,” he warns.

“It’s not. I love you, Louis, I always will. But it’s better for us now that we’re honest with each other… it’s better for our friendship, that we became our own people.”

“I always _am_ my own person,” Louis snaps, and he sounds so sure of himself but inside is terrified it’s a kneejerk reaction; he’s terrified that he’s actually wrong.

“Right, so you shouldn’t have to forgive Zayn just because Liam has.”

Louis rubs his eyes with the back of his hand. “I don’t want to have to hang up with you.”

“I’m not trying to hurt you, Louis.”

“Then don’t,” Louis says, worried he might start actually crying now. His emotions are rolling all around inside him like so many dropped marbles. He feels out of control and impossibly jumbled.

“And you’ve been doing the heavy lifting, haven’t you?” Harry says.

“Huh?” Louis rolls onto his side, curling into himself. His elbow, battered from years of holding a microphone, aches from holding the phone up. 

“With telling people about you. It’s been all you so far.”

“Well, Niall found out by accident.”

“Right... but can I ask who gave him the details?”

Louis presses a hand to his forehead, feeling tension building behind his eyes. “S’pose it was me,” he says. “And Liam told him more later.”

“Yeah, so,” Harry says.

“What are you saying?” Louis says, an annoyed edge to his voice.

“I’m not trying to antagonize you, Lou, I’m trying to show you things you’re maybe not seeing. I don’t want you to start resenting each other at all for things like this.”

“Liam and I talk about what bothers us all the time.”

“But... in the context of your _relationship_ , Lou?” Harry says.

“You know what? Fuck off,” Louis says.

He hangs up on him and lies there, stomach churning. After less than a minute he picks up the phone and rings Harry back.

“That was quick,” Harry says, unruffled. “I hardly set the phone down. I’m sorry, Lou, I’m not trying to upset you --”

“No, I’m sorry,” Louis interrupts him. “I get you’re trying to help. I just hate --”

“-- being told what to do?”

“Right. Harold? _Shut up_.”

Harry laughs fondly.

“Maybe there are some things I haven’t said to him,” Louis admits. “But we don’t keep things from each other, not on purpose.”

“No, I know... Look, I think you and Liam are solid, I think you love each other madly, actually to a point that is a tad obnoxious…”

Louis laughs.

“And I think the world of both of you, _duh_. I just don’t want you to bottle up the bad.” He pauses. “I know you and Zayn did.”

Louis remembers how after the meeting where they were told he was leaving for good, he had gone straight to Harry’s room first, sobbing and railing against Zayn. “He didn’t even tell _me_ ,” he had raged, as Harry sat and watched him with large, glassy eyes and a face red from crying. “ _Me!_ ”

“It was always different with Zayn,” Louis mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I know.”

“And I wasn’t… _with_ Zayn… Christ.”

“I know.”

Louis sighs heavily. “Right, anyway, thanks for the talk. I’ll see you Thursday.”

“Give Jay my love,” Harry says. “Your sisters, too.”

“Will do.”

They hang up and Louis folds his hands over his stomach, staring at the ceiling. He feels a familiar need thrumming through his body; the urge to go and act with purpose in some way, for good or for bad. It’s a need he’s never quite learned to deny.

He sits up, running his hands over his face and into his hair, then goes back downstairs.

“Mum,” he calls. Jay appears in the doorway to the sitting room.

“What’s up, Louis?”

He takes her by the shoulders and steers her to the side, speaking in a lowered voice. “So listen... I’ll hang out here for a few more hours, but I think I ought to go home to Liam today, not tomorrow.”

Jay nods. “I understand.”

“You do?”

“Yes, of course,” Jay says, sounding amused. “You’ve got things to discuss… and is he not your man?”

Louis’ heart flutters strangely. “We have got things to discuss, yeah.”

“Then _go_ , love.”

 

/

 

Louis gets back as the sun is setting, casting London in that odd hazy late springtime glow that makes everything seem so fleeting. He’s sweating in his Rovers hoodie as he pulls his bags out of his car. It feels like summer is on them already.

He drops his things on the floor as the door shuts heavily behind him. He hears Watson bark from another room.

“Liam,” he calls, and when he doesn’t get an answer he cups his hands to his mouth. “Liam! _LIAM!_ ”

He hears footsteps pounding on the stairs and Liam appears, looking delighted; he rushes over to Louis and crushes him in a hug. They squeeze each other so tightly that Louis can feel it in his ribcage. He pulls back from Liam so he can kiss him, and Liam’s hand cups his jaw while the other stays circled around his waist, holding him close.

“I was in the loo,” Liam says. “Didn’t think you’d be back so early…”

“Came back for you,” Louis says.

Liam gazes at him with a sweet, puppyish look. He smiles brightly. “Did you really?”

“Yeah, bachelor pal,” Louis says, stroking Liam’s shoulder. Liam laughs. “One day away and I went mad. Now keep snogging me.”

“I’ll do you one better,” Liam says, and puts his hands on Louis’ hips to steer him and press his back against the wall. He lowers himself down to his knees, looking into Louis’ eyes with a sober expression.

Louis grins and slides his hands into Liam’s hair. “Ohhh...”

“Mmm,” Liam says as he slides Louis’ sweats off his arse and then his pants. Louis’ cock springs free, already somewhat hard. He kisses Louis’ thighs.

“Welcome home,” he murmurs.

Louis gives a satisfied sigh and scratches Liam’s scalp with his sharp little nails. Liam groans in response. He starts mouthing and kissing at Louis’ cock, not taking him in fully, and Louis whines at the teasing.

Finally Liam does grab hold of his shaft and take Louis in his mouth, and Louis sucks in a shuddering breath, jerking his hips off the wall.

Liam sucks at him eagerly, looking up at Louis under the dark fringe of his lashes with a pliant, needy expression that makes Louis flush all over with arousal. Liam’s hands grasp his hips and he leans forward against Louis, taking him deeper. Liam makes a soft choked noise that Louis finds immensely hot. Liam is such a devoted cocksucker, so careful and affectionate with his movements. Louis continues to marvel at how Liam, who used to blush and wheel around when confronted with a naked bandmate, could love Louis so much and be so attracted to him that he’ll desperately deep throat his willy like there’s no tomorrow.

“Liam,” Louis moans.

Liam strokes the base of Louis’ cock with his hand as he takes him deeper, and Louis takes this as an invitation to fuck Liam’s face, rolling his hips. Liam makes a choking sound again and grabs Louis’ arse, pulling him closer but holding him steady. The sucking noises he’s making are absolutely obscene and Louis has to grit his teeth against coming; his hands are gripping Liam’s sweaty hair so tightly that if he pulled, he’d probably yank some out.

Liam draws back slightly. His mouth is wet and pink, and precome dribbles down his chin while a string of saliva stretches between his lips and Louis’ shaft. He licks up Louis’ cock in languid motions.

“Ohhh, bastard,” Louis moans.

Liam just smiles at him, taking Louis in his mouth again. The patch of chest visible from his scoop-necked shirt is slick with sweat.

“‘Bout to come…”

Liam can’t respond, can only bob on Louis’ cock while gazing up at him with love in his eyes, and Louis quickly climaxes. He staggers a bit, back slamming into the wall behind him, and begins rubbing at his softening but still sensitive cock as he watches Liam use his thumb to wipe Louis’ come off of his bottom lip and chin and swallow what’s in his mouth.

Louis lets out a shaky breath. Liam gets to his feet and snogs Louis deeply, pressing his tongue into his mouth and taking his face in both hands, sliding his fingers up through Louis’ hair and sucking on his bottom lip with his swollen, come-slick mouth. Louis tastes the saltiness of himself and his spent cock twitches fruitlessly. He feels the familiar ache of wanting Liam to be inside of him and cups Liam’s dick with his hand; Liam is half-hard already, awaiting his attention.

“Let’s go upstairs,” Louis murmurs. “I’d like to shower.”

Liam steps back from him, going cross-eyed for a moment from the intensity of the kiss. He slides his hands down over Louis’ neck, resting under his hairline. “Shower?”

“Yeah, together,” Louis says. “Because I’m sweaty and gross, and I also want to eat your arse and then I want you to pound me in _my_ arse.”

Liam laughs. “Good to have you back,” he says, and tips Louis’ chin up with his finger to kiss him on the mouth again.

 

/

 

They soap each other up with the fancy Tom Ford bar Harry gave Louis as a stocking stuffer, then Liam turns Louis away from him and presses him to the shower wall where he shampoos Louis’ hair for him and massages his scalp. Louis lets out a long sigh and relaxes into Liam’s touch, leaning back against his broad chest.

Liam’s cock pokes him in the lower back and he moves up against it, rolling his hips. Liam staggers back a little and laughs. “Careful,” he says, and hits the button for jets to come out of the wall they’re facing. Louis leans into them, rinsing shampoo from his hair; when he’s finished he turns back to Liam and slides his hands over Liam’s back and down to his arse.

Liam watches his face, looking apprehensive.

“Relax, love,” Louis says. He soaps his fingers and glides them over Liam’s arse cheek, sliding them lower until he’s skimming around the edge of his asshole. Liam makes a funny little nervous noise and Louis slides his other arm around his waist and pulls him in for a kiss. He slides his tongue into Liam’s mouth and is met with total pliancy and gentle sucking at his bottom lip; his empty cock throbs from the stimulation.

He starts to stroke at Liam and Liam gasps, grabbing Louis’ shoulder so hard Louis winces.

“Liam, I have _eaten_ your arse plenty,” Louis says. “Right now I’m hardly even touching you.”

Liam looks bemused and shrugs. “I guess it’s been a while,” he says, and then hesitates.

“And?” Louis observes him, continuing to gently stroke him, as Liam hasn’t told him to stop.

“You’re a little intense today,” Liam says, softly, his eyes large and apologetic.

Louis shakes his head as if to dispel something. “Sorry,” he says, genuinely. “Didn’t even realize.”

“If you want to just lie around and play FIFA, we can.”

“No, no, no,” Louis says. “Not at all. I want to have a nice evening with you, I want to get you off.”

“If it's the stuff with your mum and with Zayn…”

“I don’t want to think about that,” Louis says. “Want to think about you instead.” He smiles gently at Liam and reaches up with his free hand to stroke his face. Liam smiles back, leaning into him, and they nuzzle at each other. Louis strokes at him more insistently, then starts to finger him the slightest bit; Liam clutches at him and Louis can feel the tension in his grip.

“We don’t have to do this bit,” Louis says. “You can just fuck me and we’ll call it a night, lad.”

“Nooo, I want it,” Liam assures him. “I’m sorry, it must seem like I don’t.”

“Well, you’re holding onto me for dear life, for one.”

Liam laughs. “It’s just so bright in here,” he says. “And it's awkward standing up… I just want to take you to bed.”

“Right,” Louis says, and draws his hand away, rinsing it off. He steps out of the shower to rummage in a drawer for lube. He finds some and steps back in, closing his eyes and enjoying the overpowering heat of the water. He’s always loved near-painfully hot showers; he’s taught Liam to love them too, or more likely Liam just humors him.

“You look like… do you remember Birmingham?” Liam says softly, taking the lube and spreading it over his fingers. “When you were absolutely soaked?”

“I do,” Louis says. “Remember you staring a hole in me most of the night.”

He grins up at Liam and slings his arms around his neck; Liam slides his fingers down and gives Louis a pinch of the arse cheek and then pushes one finger into him. Louis lets out a breathy noise and slides his fingers through Liam’s wet hair.

“Was I that obvious?” Liam murmurs. He looks suddenly serious and lost in his thoughts. Louis gives his cock a few strokes to get his attention back.

“I don’t know,” Louis admits. “I guess you sort of were. It wasn’t like I thought at the time, s _hit, Payno’s got major wood for me, hasn’t he?_ Guess it was something I got more subconsciously.”

“But you noticed,” Liam says. “In some way. And that was mid October.”

“The twelfth.”

Liam slides another finger into him. Louis gives a shuddering gasp. “Nice, nice,” he says.

“Fuck,” Liam says. “Fuck. I really was… Fuck.”

“What are you on about?”

Liam looks at him again and Louis loosens his grip around his shoulders, putting a little air between them, though Liam’s still got digits in him and a tattoo-covered arm wrapped tight around his waist.

“So… your mum called me this morning,” Liam says.

“Christ, of course she did,” Louis says, rolling his eyes. “And said what?”

“Just, y’know, making sure I was taking care of you properly, but she wanted to talk about Sophia, as well… and at the time I thought it was odd…”

“Okay, out, out,” Louis says. They separate and stand there under the water, looking at each other. Louis feels suddenly claustrophobic and overheated, but stays rooted to the spot.

“Sorry,” he finally says. “I just can’t have you fingering me and talking about Sophia.”

Liam shakes his head vehemently. “No, I understand.”

“So, what about her, then?”

“I just…” Liam makes a helpless gesture. “I just was so mixed up and it was so overwhelming with the album promo and the end of the tour and then she left me and I just… I didn’t think of it as like, we broke up because of you. But it had to have partly been that. It had to have.”

Louis feels his chest and jaw tighten simultaneously, cutting through his arousal. He stands there, breathing heavily in the humidity. “I think I knew that,” he says. “Even if you didn’t.”

Liam nods. “I’m not surprised.”

“Anyway, go on,” Louis says, and folds his arms. He suddenly feels self-conscious.

Liam chews the inside of his cheek. “Well, like… it wasn’t just the hiatus coming up, and her wanting space,” he says slowly. “The sex went south, too. I was trying to hard to make the other parts work, be romantic, I thought I could get it back. But I wanted to have sex with _you_. I was this panicked, sweating mess, I was trying too hard and keeping all these feelings hidden, even from myself, and she must have picked up on it.”

“And?” Louis says, belligerent. “Am I supposed to feel guilty?”

He does feel guilty.

“Nooo, no, Lou,” Liam says, coming back toward him. He embraces Louis and at first Louis is dead weight, uncooperative, but he grudgingly leans into Liam’s touch. Liam kisses his temple.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he says. “I just hadn’t come to terms with that, I s’pose. I had myself convinced it hadn't much to do with you, but of course it did. But it’s not your fault, it’s mine.”

Louis strokes Liam’s lower back to reassure him. Liam holds him in an appealingly desperate way, the way a little boy holds onto something he doesn’t want to lose.

“I’m sorry, Payno,” Louis finally says.

“Sorry?”

“Sorry I went and wrecked your chance at normal.”

Liam laughs. “When have we ever picked normal?”

Louis turns his head for a kiss. They kiss deeply, eagerly, the way people who are feeling complicit do. Liam slips him his tongue and Louis takes his hands and places them on his arse again. Liam starts fingering him again, more eagerly, and Louis lets out a moan to encourage him, pressing Liam’s hard cock between them.

Louis is aware it’s dysfunctional, but in some dark little corner of his mind he feels safer, more secure, for knowing that Liam was brought low by his lust for him, that Liam was vulnerable to him even before Louis put so much on the line to kiss him that first time.

“I want you,” Louis moans. Liam’s got a third finger into him now and is really rubbing at his prostate; he's awfully hard himself.

Liam kisses down the side of his jaw and they both stagger out of the shower, clinging to each other, turning it off as they go. Louis grabs the lube to bring with them and quickly towels off his hair.

Liam climbs up onto the bed as he does the same and then lies face-down, slightly spread-eagle. Louis kneels next to him. Outside, the sun has set. Streetlights and the moon pour in through his window, adding to the gentle glow from the dimmed chandelier overhead. Liam rolls over slightly to look at him and with his dark, morose eyes and thick eyebrows, he looks like an oil painting spread out across Louis’ sheets.

“Let me in there,” Louis murmurs, getting between his legs and leaning down. Liam settles back down and lets out a soft, happy sigh. He kisses down Liam’s back.

“Not too much though, Tommo,” he says, voice muffled by the bed. “I’m pretty hard already.”

“That’s my boy,” Louis says, “the old semi-automatic…”

“You should be flattered,” Liam protests.

“Oh, I am.”

Louis continues his trail of kisses down Liam’s arse cheek and over his inner thigh, teasing him. He has a pleasant feeling inside himself, a feeling he always associates with being finger fucked: the gentle buzz of arousal from the fingering itself, intensified by the knowledge that Liam will soon be inside him.

He flicks his tongue over Liam’s arsehole and is rewarded with a long, low groan from Liam and the sight of him clenching his fists in Louis’ expensive bedsheets.

Louis really gets into it then, licking him more eagerly. He’s good with his tongue and even better at teasing. Half of the rimjob is spent kissing Liam elsewhere, stroking his body and building up tension in him before returning again to the scene of the crime. He luxuriates in watching Liam squirm and gasp. 

Finally Liam is getting too hard and Louis’ jaw begins to tire, as he was grinding his teeth in his sleep all last night.

“That’s about my limit,” Liam says, his voice low with arousal, and rolls over to look at him. Louis flashes him a quick smile and gets up to brush his teeth very thoroughly, then returns to Liam and nuzzles up to him.

“You ready for me?” Liam says, running his hands through Louis’ hair.

“More than,” Louis says, and rolls over onto his back with a smile.

Liam strokes his thigh. “But…” he says cajolingly. “I was thinking you on top, maybe?”

Louis makes a noncommittal groaning sound. “Compromise? Doggy style?”

“That works.”

Louis sits up and gets on his hands and knees on the bed. He likes doggy style more than he wants to admit; the submissive posture and relentless pounding appeal to the part of him that enjoys temporarily giving up his hard-won feeling of control.

Liam somehow intuits this train of thought and remarks, “That’s a good angle for you,” sounding appreciative in a lascivious way that’s unlike him.

“Oh yeah?” Louis purrs, dipping his head forward. Liam reaches up and pushes his hair off his neck.

“Yeah, your arse looks bloody fantastic from here. The back tat, as well.”

“Cheers. Oh, Leeyum, could you put on a condom? I just don’t want to have to wash up again.”

“Haven’t got any on me,” Liam says, and slips a finger into him. Louis lets out a breath. “Where do you keep yours again?”

“Shit,” Louis says. “Downstairs. You know what, never mind, fuck it.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, ’m lazy.”

“Oh, I know,” Liam says, sounding amused. “I’m thankful all the time I can’t get you pregnant.”

“Hey, that’s some good dirty talk, Payno,” Louis says. Liam laughs and easily slides another finger into him. Louis moans and leans forward, back arched.

Liam pinches his arse cheek with his other hand and then slides it over his hip to hold onto him at the dip of his waist. He’s rock hard against Louis’ thigh and Louis grinds back against him.

“Ohhh, Tommo…”

Louis finds himself getting hard again and touches himself absent-mindedly. He feels Liam’s fingers leave him and a surge of hot arousal spikes in his stomach and travels upward in anticipation. Liam squeezes him around the waist as he guides his cock into Louis. Louis slides his hands forward on the bed and gives a long moan.

“You feel so good,” Liam groans, reaching forward to grab a handful of his hair. Louis leans into his touch.

“Pull it, pull it,” he demands, and Liam complies. Louis relishes in the sharp pain and the sensation of being pinned where he is; he wants Liam to do whatever he feels like and vocally tells him so.

Liam starts fucking him, hard. Louis sighs as he feels a deep, blissful satisfaction spread through him. He's ached for Liam since he's been home, and the pleasure of finally having him overpowers the burn of being split open. He fists one hand in the sheets and gives himself over to what’s happening to his body. He feels primal, mammalian; he and Liam are just young animals doing what animals do. Louis squeezes his eyes shut. He feels his heart thudding in his chest, the rhythmic slam of Liam into him, the aggressive stimulation of that spot inside of him that makes him want Liam’s thick cock ever-harder, ever-deeper. His own cock is leaking over his thighs and against his stomach. Louis parts his legs wider to get Liam deeper and lets out a gasp.

Liam’s thrusting slows, and he slides a palm flat against Louis’ ribcage. Louis opens his eyes and lets go of the sheet. Liam slides out of him gingerly.

“What?” Louis murmurs. With gentle hands, Liam rolls him over onto his back.

Louis smiles and spreads his legs wide. Liam gets between them and uses one hand to guide himself back into Louis, the other cupping Louis’ face.

“As fun as that is, I just hate not looking at you,” Liam says, voice soft.

Louis grabs Liam’s arse and slides down on the bed, pulling him in deeper. Liam starts moving in him as energetically as before, but slides a hand into Louis’ hair and leaves it there, kissing him along his hairline. They’re both damp with sweat, and smell like sex and each other. Louis wraps his arms around Liam’s neck and holds him close.

“Liam,” Louis moans.

“Louis,” Liam says, drawing his name out, and he kisses him deeply, continuing to thrust into him.

Louis feels bone-deep sedated by Liam’s cock and Liam’s love. He wants to lie here forever, being moved up and down across the bed by Liam’s effort, doing nothing but holding him and being filled by him and feeling his hard and dripping cock rub back and forth against Liam’s ab muscles.

Liam’s face changes, and Louis knows he’s going to come; he squeezes his thighs together against Liam’s sides and lets out a soft whine. Liam bites his lip and strokes Louis’ cheek, then a few moments later sighs deeply and Louis knows it’s happened. Liam drapes himself over Louis like an octopus and Louis strokes his hair and kisses his nose and temple and forehead.

“I feel misled, lad,” Louis murmurs. His eyelids feel heavy and he sounds like he’s tipsy.

“Misled?” Liam says, kissing him again. Louis’ tongue pushes into Liam’s mouth but then he laughs and draws back again. They rub the tips of their noses together and then Liam moves off and out of him, getting onto his side so he can wrap an arm around Louis’ chest and nestle his head in the crook of Louis’ shoulder.

“Thought that was just going to be a good drilling, and then you start, like, makin’ love to me.”

Liam’s face is soft and serene. In this painterly light, his features look younger. Louis sees vestiges of the seventeen year old boy he used to know.

He says nothing and just strokes Louis’ hair up and away from his forehead again, then brings their heads together. Louis closes his eyes and hums softly.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Liam murmurs. “But I kind of like you, is the thing.”

“Mmm,” Louis says, smiling. “Gay, but I’ll allow it.”

Liam laughs heartily.

They cuddle in pleasant silence for a while longer, then Louis grudgingly gets up to rinse the semen off his thighs. He realizes he still has a hard-on, and is stimulated enough to be able to bring himself off in about a minute flat standing in the shower, shuddering pleasantly as the orgasm rolls through him and his come splatters the drain. Inside he hurts from being fucked so hard, but it's a good and satisfying hurt, like the ache after a day of football conditioning. He likes carrying that pain around with him -- relishes in how taboo and antiestablishment it is to be limping around sore because your best mate was a little rough having it off with you.

When he returns, Liam’s waiting for him with the TV on.

“I ordered a pizza,” he says cheerfully.

“Ohhh, love you, Payno,” Louis says, snuggling into the crook of his arm.

As they lie there flicking through channels and then eventually turning to Netflix, Louis’ mind wanders. His thoughts, as usual, are tempted to grow more shadowy the longer he lies there. He resists gamely. It feels to him as if he's been bleeding the last two days and must now finally cauterize the wound and work on repairing it.

He leans his head against Liam's shoulder.

“Before you pass out,” Liam says, putting down a pizza crust. Louis groans. “So you sorted this Daily Mail thing? Harry texted me and said you had, but it spooked me.”

“Fuck, right,” Louis says, yawning. “Yeah, I sorted it. I told her we’re living together for a little bit while you take meetings in London and we’re doing some writing as well…”

“True,” Liam says. “Partially, anyway.”

“Yeah, I didn't add a bit, like, about all the shagging. Should I have?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

They laugh, and Louis snuggles closer to him.

 

/

 

Louis spends an excessive amount of time getting ready the next morning. He fiddles for a while with his hair, wishing he’d had it cut more recently, then gives up on himself and calls a car.

“Payno,” he calls downstairs before he leaves. “I’m headed out!”

“Okay,” Liam yells back. “Where are you going? We need marmalade!”

“Right,” Louis calls, ignoring the question.

In the car he cracks the window, puts his feet up and smokes a series of cigarettes; the driver, Manuel, knows him well by now and protests “Louis, Louis,” to no avail.

“My upholstery will stink,” he finally says, defeated.

Louis throws a large handful of hundreds over the partition. “Sorry. Get it detailed anyway,” he says. “I think there’s a sex stain back here.”

“That’s _champagne.._. Okay, fine, thanks. This is my tip?”

Louis blows out some smoke. “That’s your tip.”

“All this? You're joking.”

“Nope.”

“Well... thanks, Louis.”

When they roll up to the apartment building, Louis doesn’t get out right away. He finishes his smoke and tries to centre himself. He thinks of the first concert they did after Zayn left, when Harry took him aside before sound check and quietly said, “Pretend it’s five hours from now. Just keep doing that, keep pretending, and then suddenly it’ll be five hours from now. And five days, and then five months...”

“Pretend it’s five hours from now,” Louis mutters out loud.

“Huh?” Manuel says.

“Nothing,” he says. “See you in a bit.”

The doorman in the lobby recognizes Louis and evidently is not pleased with his presence; he makes Louis wait as he calls Eleanor down with excruciatingly slowness.

“Have you dragged a bunch of paparazzi along with you?” he says snidely.

“Haven’t, in fact,” Louis says. “But cheers,  mate.”

“Right...”

“Louis!” a familiar voice calls, and he turns to see Eleanor. He goes toward her with his arms out and they have a brisk hug. She takes his arm and pulls him onto the lift.

“What’s going on?” she says, tucking her hair behind her ears. It’s neatly bobbed; she looks sleek, slim and well-tailored. Louis wishes again that he’d at least gotten a haircut; he's generally unkempt and not at his fighting weight. “Why didn’t you call?”

Louis shrugs. “Wanted to talk to you about something.”

“In person?” Her eyes search his face. “What did you do?”

“Nice,” he says drily.

Eleanor brushes this off. “You know what I mean.”

“Can we go up to your place?”

Eleanor folds her arms and gives a little sigh. “I can’t, actually,” she says. “I’ve got someone over.”

Louis doesn’t like the sound of this, but presses on anyway. “Let’s go up to the roof, then.”

“Lou… it’s someone I’m dating, so like…”

It’s been a year, but his heart twists anyway. It’s been a year, but he doesn’t have to like it.

“So like,” he rejoinders. His palms are sweating, and he ignores that.

Seeing Eleanor has made telling her seem more impossible than before. She leads a different life now, one with more poise and panache, one where she isn’t dogged by overenthusiastic teenagers. He’s jealous of her and resents her in equal measure, but is also reminded by being in her presence why he loved her so much.

The thing with Liam is messy; that’s the crux of it. It’s messy and strange, awkward to explain and difficult to understand. Eleanor has seen him at his worst, but he finds that fact hard to reconcile with the ethereal person in the lift next to him. She seems to have ascended to another plane of existence while he was down in the mud, having ill-advised sex with a lot of women just because he could and then falling in love with his best mate.

She now seems to him to be playing at being a real adult, which is a role that, for all of his oldest-in-the-band and oldest child experience, he’s never been able to reconcile with himself.

They arrive at her floor and step out. Eleanor turns to him.

“I just don’t want to make it weird for him,” she says. “Like -- ‘hey, don’t worry, I’ll be back in a minute, I’ve just gone up to the roof with my ex-boyfriend for a while, for a reason he won’t explain to me.’”

Louis laughs and nods and she leans in to hug him, a real hug this time. He closes his eyes. She’s using different shampoo since he last saw her; she’s wearing a different scent.

“What’s wrong?” she asks quietly, and draws back.

“Nothing,” he says, a little choked up. He clears his throat.

“You looked so sad just now,” Eleanor says. She studies his face.

“It’s nothing,” he repeats.

“You can tell me anything, you know,” she says in a low tone.

Louis smiles wanly at her. “Not in a hallway, I can’t, love.”

“Can it wait, then?”

“It can,” Louis says. “I think it can wait.”

“Are you okay, is your family okay?” Eleanor seems a little unnerved now, shifting from foot to foot like she’s cold.

“Everyone’s fine,” he says, grabbing her hand and squeezing it. “Not a health thing, or anything. And I’m not, like, dying, I haven’t got anything. Sorry, I should have said.”

She sighs with relief. Louis feels a twinge of discomfort inside of him from being fucked the night before, and has a flash of missing Liam.

“Listen, go back to your…” He makes a face without really intending to. “Your man. I’ll come ‘round some other time. Like I said, not time sensitive, I’ve just got to sit down with you for a bit. Maybe get a bit plastered first.”

“What... are you seeing somebody seriously?” she says. Her face shifts in concern. “No, you wouldn’t be this weird about that, would you… How serious would it have to be?”

Louis’ heart jumps a little at her landing in the ballpark, but he keeps a poker face. “Stop guessing,” he chides her.

She bites her lip. “You’re not getting _married_ , are you?”

“Oh, _God_. No, and stop guessing _._ ”

“Okay, okay,” Eleanor says, smoothing her slacks with her hands. “Fine. I’ll see you later, then.”

“See you,” he says, turning back to the lift. He turns and gives her one last up-and-down look. “You look fit, by the way...”

Eleanor looks away from him, hiding a smile. “ _Cheeky_ ,” she whispers as she gets her keys back out.

 

/

 

Louis is exhausted as soon as he steps into the house. He sits down at the island and rests his head in his hands. All of the emotional energy he spent preparing himself to drop the Liam bomb on Eleanor feels supremely wasted.

He hears feet on the basement stairs and looks up. Liam himself appears in the doorway, shirtless and sweaty with a towel around his shoulders.

“Hey, you’re back,” he says cheerily, and grabs a Gatorade out of the fridge.

“Been working out?” Louis says, rubbing his temples.

“Yeah, yeah,” Liam says. “I’d been slacking, but I feel great now. You okay?”

Louis looks at him. He wishes he could articulate what he’s feeling. “Fine,” he grumbles.

Liam tosses his towel on the counter and comes up behind Louis, starting to rub his back. Liam smells oppressively of sweat and Louis wants to be alone, but it feels good to be massaged, so he leans into it.

“You should work out,” Liam says. “You’ll feel better.”

“Cheers,” Louis snaps. “Maybe I’m taking a break from working out six days a week ten months out of the fucking year.”

Liam’s hands stop and lay flat against his lower back.

“Louis, I didn’t mean anything by that,” Liam says, sounding wounded. “I just meant your muscles are tight.”

Louis presses his palms to his eyes. “Sorry,” he mutters.

“You don’t have to take the topic so personally. I never mean it that way.”

“Maybe it’s just from spending three weeks in a row with Harry,” Louis says. He adopts a low, drawling tone. “Uhhhh, I’m six feet tall, uhhhh, I mean… I don’t eat food anymore, uhhh…”

Liam laughs and digs an elbow into a tight spot. Louis groans in pain and leans forward.

“Sorry,” Liam says. He leaves it and starts gently rubbing Louis’ shoulders instead. Louis makes a happy, satisfied noise. “So where were you? Did you get marmalade?”

“Went where I said I was going the other day,” Louis says. “Eleanor’s.”

Liam stops rubbing him. “Holy shit, you _told_ her?” he exclaims, horrified. In the black little mood he’s in, Louis is privately amused over how comical Liam can sometimes sound when he’s surprised.

“Relax, no, I didn’t,” Louis says. “Do I seem traumatized enough for that?”

Liam comes back around the counter, takes another sip of his Gatorade and eyeballs Louis. “Nooo... just cranky...”

Louis shrugs. “Sometimes am. You signed up for it, Payno.”

Liam snorts and looks down, shaking his head and smiling fondly.

“Yeah. I did. So… why didn’t you tell her?” he asks, leaning his elbows on the counter. Louis notices how good he looks with his muscles defined from exercise and face flushed. He drops his hands down, palms up, and Liam’s hands close over his almost automatically. Like most of their body parts, their hands fit well together. Liam rubs his thumb over Louis’ palm.

“She wouldn’t let me in,” Louis says, finally. “Had a bloke over. Didn’t seem like a conversation to have in a hallway.”

Liam’s face drops. “Louis... I’m sorry. Just some bloke?”

“No, a boyfriend, I think. I don’t know. It’s been too long now, we don’t talk about those things anymore. She had a tough time of it, y’know, right after we broke up and I went around racking ‘em up. I guess she doesn’t feel like she owes me that.” He sighs. “She’s probably right.”

Liam continues to stroke his hand and look at him carefully. “I think Sophia’s got a boyfriend now too,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, someone texted me about it the other week, s’pose by accident as I then got the impression I wasn’t supposed to know. Bit awkward,” he says, sounding snide in a way that’s unlike him.

Louis makes a sympathetic noise. “Why can’t people just disappear when you break up with them?”

Liam chuckles.

Their own relationship is an elephant in the room they both seem keen to avoid. Louis can’t imagine a world in which Liam is not one of his most favorite people, in which he doesn’t want to be held by Liam or snogged by him, so he doesn't linger on the thought.

“That reminds me,” he says. “I literally have not checked my texts all day. It’s awful in there.”

“Oh, bad boy,” Liam says. “I had one from Hattie at the crack of dawn this morning, like, Liam! Get a date to the VMAs!”

“Oh, Christ, she gave me that line too. I don’t even want to _go_ to the VMAs, for fuck’s sake.”

“Niall doesn’t either,” Liam says. “Selena’s performing.”

“Poor Nialler.”

“How we artists all suffer for love,” Liam says, and squeezes Louis’ hand.

 

/

 

Louis spends the rest of the day lounging around being irritable and responding to his steadily increasing backlog of texts. He makes half-hearted plans with Calvin and Oli to go out on Friday, and yells at Liam for vacuuming and getting laundry together. “The lady is coming _tomorrow,_ Liam, why bother?” he says incredulously, lolling around on the couch, and Liam just rolls his eyes and gestures for Louis to get his shoes off the carpet.

He does a near-excessive amount of reps of presses with Liam spotting him, and rewards himself by opening a bottle of whiskey. The sun has gone down. He wanders around the house aimlessly, drinking and ignore Liam’s worried glances.

“I need more paintings,” he calls to Liam in the bedroom. He’s in the hallway, surveying a blank space on the wall. “‘S a good investment, right? Paintings?”

“I don’t know,” Liam says, appearing in the doorway. “I don’t own much art, you should talk to Harold. Maybe statues are a better investment, I dunno.”

“He’s got weird taste,” Louis says. “He likes, like, drawings of dicks and modern shit. I’d like some old stuff.”

“Well, you should talk to him anyway. He knows all those people. I think he had it off with this one London art buyer a couple times, actually, but I don’t know her name.”

Louis bounces up and down on his heels. The whiskey hasn’t quelled his nervous energy much.

He turns to Liam. “Want to fuck?”

Liam runs his hand through his hair and gives him a complicated but apologetic look. “Tired. Later?”

Louis sighs and takes another sip of his drink. “Today’s been such a wash, I hate it.”

“It’s okay to spend a day not doing anything.”

“Hey, look who’s talking,” Louis says. “You get bored faster than I do.”

Liam slides down with his back against the doorway and sits there, legs stretched out in front of him, listless. “I’m working on it,” he says.

“What’s wrong, love?” Louis says. He comes over and sits down next to him, then lies his head in Liam’s lap. Liam absent-mindedly strokes his hair.

“I just want to be with you,” Liam says. “It seemed easier somehow when we were still traveling and performing, didn’t it? Too busy to think.”

Louis nods.

“No one would care if you were a girl,” Liam continues. “It would make sense, everyone would expect it. It’d just be like Fleetwood Mac. We could even break off and be like, a little indie duo. You could have bangs ‘n’ all that.”

“Why am I always the girl in your imagination?” Louis says.

“I like girls.”

Louis smiles up at him and plays with the hem of his shirt. “What, and I don’t?”

“You have the, uh… the girl arse.” Liam slides his hand under him and squeezes it, as if for emphasis.

“Fuck off,” Louis exclaims, enjoying himself all the same. “You be the girl once in a while, Payno.”

“Compromise,” Liam says, his fingers running over Louis’ collarbone. “We both be the girl. Be cute lesbians.”

“Nice. Doesn’t solve the original issue, though.”

“No,” Liam muses. “I s’pose it doesn’t.”

 

/

 

Louis sits in his dark kitchen, listening to a small rainstorm patter on his windows. His body feels weighed down by the alcohol he drank, like it’s calcified in his veins. His brain is foggy.

He should go upstairs and be with Liam, who as far as he can tell has gone to bed, retiring from the pointlessness of their Wednesday and hiding himself away from Louis as he wanders the house like an angry ghost on the Yorkshire moors.

Louis doesn’t go to bed. Heart clenched in his chest like a mean little fist, he navigates to Zayn’s number on his phone and down to Unblock Caller. Then, with a stab of his index finger, he calls him.

The phone rings and rings and rings. The call lurches to twenty seconds, then twenty-five, and Louis takes the phone away from his ear to hang up before he gets a voicemail. It’s then that he hears Zayn’s thick accent saying, _hello? Louis, hello?_

“Yeah, it’s me,” he says. He feels sick to his stomach on a profoundly helpless level, like he’s watching a car wreck.

For maybe ten seconds, Zayn just breathes in his ear.

“One sec,” he finally says, and Louis hears the sounds of him getting up and leaving a room. He wonders if he was with a girl.

Louis says nothing. Cowardice pulls at him, tells him to end the call and block Zayn’s number again. His petty anger circulates _bitchy comments, bitchy comments_ in his head continually, it reminds him sharply of the sheer horror that flooded in him upon reading that tweet, the hotel room wall he had put two holes in, first with his fist and then with his foot.

Liam had come to him then, he reminds himself. Liam’s presence had sawed through his anger; Liam’s devastated little-boy face had made a fast adult of him in that moment. And Liam is upstairs, right now, wanting nothing more than for him to be happy and whole and past this.

So he doesn’t hang up.

“Okay, I’m here,” Zayn says. He sounds like he’s on edge. Louis notices some of the luster has gone out of his speaking voice.

“So am I,” Louis says. “Obviously.”

Zayn sighs and Louis feels vindicated. He wants Zayn to be palpably annoyed with him. After the inciting incident, it’s started to feel like this is _all_ he wants from Zayn -- none of Zayn’s sweetness or gentleness or humor. He wants Zayn to be his worst self at all times so Louis can be free from regrets or soft feelings. Louis recognizes this impulse in himself and is at a loss on how to rectify it.

“What made you call?” Zayn finally says, obviously wanting to keep him on the phone.

“I don’t actually know,” Louis says. “Been drinking.”

“Great,” Zayn says drily, and Louis would laugh at that if it were directed at someone else.

“I just figured since you stopped by looking for me, we ought to talk,” Louis says.

“Wanted to talk to you in person,” Zayn says, sounding weary. “‘S why I came by.”

“I don’t want to see you in person right now,” Louis says, pointedly.

“Okay,” Zayn says, and he laughs and laughs, all very humorlessly. “Okay. Fine. Why’d you block my number?”

“Didn’t want to hear from you.”

“So this happens on your terms only, is that it? Call me up when I’m in bed and take the piss, is that it?”

Louis grips the edge of the counter, trying to keep his breathing steady. “You’re the one, lad, who owes me an apology, so I will decide when I want to hear it, yeah.”

“Maybe you missed it, but I already apologized.”

“Yeah, and I’ll decide when I want to accept it.”

“You’ll decide,” Zayn cries, sounding near to hysteria. “You’ll decide! Sorry, mate, am I on death row for murderin’ your whole fucking family, or did I blast you in a tweet?”

“You’ve got a weird memory, Zayn!” Louis shouts, standing up. “Blast me in a tweet? D’you remember this band you left rather unexpectedly, I don’t know, they were called something like _One Direction_ \--”

Louis hears footsteps upstairs and silently prays Liam doesn’t come down.

“I won’t apologize for that,” Zayn says. “I won’t. ‘S not healthy for me to. Find something else for me to have done to you.”

Louis clenches his free hand into a fist so he doesn’t start smashing his own belongings.

“Take responsibility,” he hisses.

“No. I had to do it. I was on the verge of a breakdown. You all saw it. You all pretended not to. Just turned away from me when I wasn’t being a perfect little dancing monkey --”

“I’m psychic, right?” Louis screams. “Fucking mind reader, am I? Fucking detective? Like I wasn’t trying to hold my own shit together, Zayn!”

“You of all people should have seen it,” Zayn says, his tone horrible and warped in a way Louis has never heard it before. “You let me go, you let it all happen.”

“You _left_ me,” Louis shouts, trembling, and now he does pick up a cast-iron pan and throw it at the sink. It hits with a tremendous clatter, nicking the stainless steel faucet. “You left the band, you left Liam, you left Pez, you left _me!”_

“’M not your _daddy_ , Louis --”

This is the final straw, and Louis unleashes an atomic bomb of invective, calling him, among other things, _cowardly selfish little pig_ , _backstabbing two-faced piece of shit,_ and _arrogant airheaded cocksucking fuck._

For his part, Zayn screams back at him throughout all of it, repeating over and over again _“Vindictive!_ Vindictive little _prick!”,_ but it's now clear he’s supposed on some kind of vocal rest, and his creaking and raw voice is buried under Louis’ high-pitched shouting.

When the dust has settled, Louis finds himself standing in deafening silence in the middle of his large and gleaming kitchen, feeling deeply nauseated. There is again a small noise upstairs, the noise of someone settling their weight onto a stair. Louis wants nothing more than for Liam to come to him, and yet nothing more than for him to be shielded from this.

“We should hang up,” Louis finally says. He regrets everything he’s said almost instantly, but not enough to apologize. “We can’t keep doing this to each other. This is insane.”

Zayn breathes in heavily and says, “I… I just wanted to patch it up.”

They listen to each other for a moment without speaking and Louis feels his anger begin to subside. The sound of Zayn’s breathing is intimately familiar to him, the way his sisters’ is, and his reaction to it is beyond his control.

“I don’t want to hate you,” Zayn says. “God, man... I didn’t think I could ever hate you.” His voice catches.

Louis puts the phone against his chest for a moment and blinks back hot tears.

“We let it go too long,” he says, and his voice betrays his nearness to crying. “We should have really talked ages ago. Maybe that's on me.”

Zayn is silent.

“For what it’s worth,” Louis says, and then he makes a choked noise. “I _don’t_ hate you.”

Zayn takes a long, reedy breath. “Me neither.”

“Tried so many times to see you leaving from your perspective,” Louis says, rubbing his forehead to stave off a headache. “At first, I was just so worried. And then… You've really got no idea how hard we suddenly had to work. When we were all looking to this break and we saw the light at the end of the tunnel and suddenly we all had to grind that much harder… And Liam took the brunt of it, and you weren’t there to see how that wore him down, how much it stressed him.”

“That bit, it's not your business,” Zayn says. “It's his, and Liam is the first one 't reached out to me... Liam wants you to patch it up with me.”

“Well, he’s more forgiving than I am,” Louis says, hearing the chill in his own voice.

Zayn is quiet for long enough that Louis wonders if he’s hung up, and then he says, “Quite close, now. You two.”

“Me and Liam?” Louis says, feeling his heart speed up.

“Yeah. You’n’ Liam.”

“What did you expect when you left?” Louis says, defensive. “Left a bit of a hole for both of us.”

“I’ve got a question,” Zayn says. “Why’d he lie to me about moving in with you?”

Louis takes a seat again and leans his forehead against the cool marble countertop.

“Lied?” he says, making a massive effort to keep his voice even.

“Yeah. Said he was just staying over. M’not an idiot, like. I saw the Daily Mail thing ‘n the rep comment.”

“I don't know why he said that,” Louis says. He sits up. “But you’re not exactly in a privileged position when it comes to information about us.”

“Yeah, whatever, but why lie?” Zayn says.

Louis, growing more nervous, wonders what exactly he thinks he’s poking at. He’s sure Zayn has no idea about their relationship, but it’s entirely possible that he’s caught a whiff of the overall guiltiness or impropriety inherent to the situation. He knows them better than almost anyone, after all. Liam’s face is an open book, and Zayn did see him in person the other day.

Louis is not an open book. He’s a careful, motivated liar when it's called for, and a talented actor as well. He steels himself.

“Maybe for this reason,” Louis says. “Maybe he thought you’d be jealous.”

Zayn scoffs. “Okay,” he says. “Okay, Louis.”

“Yeah, well, think about it,” Louis says, growing more confident as he pulls from reality to craft his defense. “You’ve alienated, for the most part, every single person who can really relate to what you’ve been through these last five years. Meanwhile, the rest of us, we’re closer than ever, yeah?”

“See, ‘s’what I mean when I say vindictive,” Zayn says. “Do you hear yourself, when you talk sometimes? How desperate you sound to hurt people?”

“You know, you never had a problem with it until it was aimed at you,” Louis says. “You thought I  was fucking _hilarious._ ”

“I was more immature then.”

“Right,” Louis says. “You’re so mature now, I forget.”

“This is exactly what I didn’t want,” Zayn says. “If we saw each other in person, I don’t think we’d speak to each other like this.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t speak to each other at all.”

“You called _me_.”

“Clearly a mistake.”

Silence engulfs them.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Zayn says, finally. He sounds as exhausted as Louis feels.

“Don’t bring up Troy,” Louis says. “That is just, fucking… beyond the pale.”

“I’m sorry,” Zayn says. He sounds genuine. “I really am, for that. I didn’t mean that.”

Louis takes a deep breath.

“But on your end, don’t bring up Perrie.”

“I’m still friends with her,” Louis snaps. “You know? I know how bad it was for her.”

“Don’t care. ‘S between her and me,” Zayn says sharply.

Louis clenches his jaw and then relaxes. “Yeah. Fine. Sorry.”

“I can’t keep being punished for leaving the band. I refuse to be. It is what it is. It happened, Louis. Happened a year ago.”

“And you have to accept it’s never gonna be the same between us after that.”

“I do,” Zayn says. “I _do_. Maybe you’re the one who hasn’t. Maybe you feel like, if you keep me at arm’s length, you won’t have to renegotiate what our relationship is actually going to be like now. Won’t have to admit that we had a really good thing going and we’ll never get that back.”

“Don’t analyze me.”

“I’m sayin’... because I had to realize the same thing, and it was fucking hard. And I didn’t have Liam to lean on, like.”

The rain has subsided and Louis realizes how truly dark and quiet it is outside. He looks at the stove. 12:03.

“I don’t know, Zayn,” he says. “I can’t talk myself out of being angry.”

“Not asking you to.”

“Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to hang up,” Louis says. “I’m going to leave this on an okay note. And I’m going to think about what we both said. And... I’ll be in touch.”

“’S’all I can ask.”

“Night.”

“Night, Louis.”

Louis hangs up and is suddenly alone with himself. He feels a pang of anxiety shoot through him like a static shock. He tries to breathe properly, and not all rushed and shallow like he has been.

“Hey…”

Louis looks up. Liam is in the doorway in pajamas and stocking feet, his arms folded tightly across his chest. His eyes are sleepy but he’s watching Louis in that cautious, owlish way of his.

“Liam,” says Louis, voice soft. His chest tightens.

Liam scratches the back of his head and smiles faintly.

“How much did you hear?” Louis says.

“You want some tea?” Liam demurs.

“Aye, yeah. How much did you hear?”

Liam goes to the cupboard and starts pulling things out, then puts the kettle on.

“Enough,” he finally says.

Louis rubs his eyes. “I didn't want you to hear any of it,” he says, angry with himself for being drunk and loud, for calling Zayn in the first place.

Liam shrugs. “I'm a big boy, Lou.”

Louis hears a slur in his voice and sits up straighter; at the same moment, Liam fumbles a glass and it shatters on the parquet.

“Shit,” Liam whispers, bending down, and Louis bounces to his feet.

“Don’t move, you’re in socks,” Louis says. He grabs a glove from next to the sink and a Whole Foods bag and crouches next to Liam, who’s holding his hand out with a grim smile.

“Too late,” he says. His finger is sliced open and blood is trickling down into his palm.

“Ohhh, Liam,” Louis says. He smells whiskey on Liam’s breath. “You’ve been drinking?”

Liam sighs. “You left the whiskey in the bedroom, I just had a few nips. I’m such a lightweight anymore.” Off of Louis’ look, he adds, “It’s _okay_ , Louis. It's not like I'm an alcoholic or something. _”_

“I don’t want you to start up drinking out of stress again,” Louis murmurs as he picks up pieces of glass. “Put some pressure on that.”

Liam stands and turns the sink on, moving his hand back and forth under the water. Louis grabs his phone to use the flashlight. The little shards of glass gleam brightly.

As Louis finishes, he writes out on a post-it for the cleaning crew to go over this area again with the vacuum tomorrow. He then notices he has ten or so new texts, including one from Simon Jones. He opens that one.

_Whats this band meeting tomorrow about? Just got text from Roger @ modest_

_Nothing to worry about_ , he texts back with one hand.

Simon replies near-instantaneously. _Thats cagey_

Louis sighs and rolls his eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“Getting shit from Simon about our meeting.”

“Cowell?” Liam says, confused.

“Oh, no, Jones.”

_Why use Modest conference room? Business related?_

_We wanted privacy_ , Louis texts back. _No worries. Personal band stuff_

_Anything we need to know about?_

_nope!,_ Louis says.

“This is a stupid idea, using one of their conference rooms,” he mutters. “We should have just rented out a restaurant or something.”

“We have every right to be there,” Liam says. “They owe us that sort of thing.”

“Problem isn’t our right to be there, problem is they’re scared shitless of the rest of us ever since Harold ran screaming from them straight into Jeff’s arms, and since Zayn went and lost his fucking mind…”

Liam sighs, beleaguered.

“Are you putting pressure on that?”

“Can you get me a band-aid?” Liam says. “I put them in the guest bathroom.”

“Which one?”

“The nautical theme one.”

“Liam, that’s two of them.”

“The one with the bidet.”

Louis leaves, phone continuing to ding in his pocket. He ransacks his medicine cabinet and returns, taking Liam’s hand in both of his own. He turns the faucet off and carefully dries Liam’s hand. The bleeding has stopped for the most part, and it’s not a deep cut, just a long one. Liam watches him as he sprays it with Bactine and wraps it gently in a band-aid.

“Thanks,” he says, his voice quiet and sweet, and kisses Louis’ forehead. Louis tilts his head up and kisses him on the lips. Liam wraps his arms around Louis and pulls him close.

“Sorry about Zayn,” he says.

“Me too,” Louis says, and barks out a sad little laugh.

“I shouldn’t have pushed you to get in touch with him,” Liam says. He sounds mournful and guilty and Louis hates it. “I didn’t mean to listen in, but it sounded just… awful.”

“Liam, don’t. What just happened would have happened at some point, anyway. It’s got nothing to do with you.” He takes Liam’s face in his hands and looks into his eyes. “Please know that.”

Liam laughs and clasps his own hands around Louis' wrists, as if to reassure him. “What am I... a child of divorce?”

Louis laughs, too. He turns his head and leans into Liam’s chest and shoulder.

“I do know,” Liam says softly, fingers trailing lightly through his hair. “I know, Tommo.”

He rests his injured hand on Louis’ waist and clasps his other hand around Louis’, then sways with him, like slow-dancing.

“No music?” Louis murmurs.

“Don’t need any,” Liam says. He adopts a surprisingly serviceable Sinatra impression and sings, “ _Tall and tan, and young and lovely_ …”

Louis laughs again. He enjoys feeling the vibrations in Liam as he sings; when they were very newly together in November and rehearsing for the AMAs, he would sit next to Liam in bed as he sang scales and lay his hands over his chest, like Liam was a cello.

“ _When she walks, she's like a samba... that swings so cool, and sways so gentle..._ ”

 

/

 

“Good morning,” Harry chirps as he shuts the conference room door behind him.

“Morning,” Louis says. His voice rolls out of him like so much gravel.

The conference room is wide and open, with picture windows that allow the sunlight to pour in unfettered. Louis’ head is pounding; he hardly slept the night before and he’s standing at the table of Panera breakfast catering someone set up for them, downing coffee.

“Where’s Liam?” Harry says, wandering over to the table. He pours himself some black coffee, then picks up a single strawberry, contemplates it and sets it back down. Despite the businesslike aura to the room, he’s as dressed down as possible, in torn up skinny jeans and a t-shirt depicting Saint Christina the Astonishing.

“We took separate cars,” Louis says. “He left after me.” He presses his hands down flat on the table and looks up at Harry, who surveys him with concern.

“You look peaky,” Harry says. “You should have some food.”

“I had three bagels before you got here,” Louis says churlishly, and stares at Harry as if daring him to comment on this.

Harry doesn’t take the bait and instead stirs his coffee in silence, which drives Louis mad as he hasn't even put anything in it.

“What’s wrong?” he says, after a long moment.  

“I called Zayn last night,” Louis says. “Massive mistake.”

Harry sets his coffee down and looks up. “You okay?”

“No,” Louis says. “I mean, overall, I guess, yeah. About Zayn, no.”

He doesn’t realize he’s clenching his jaw until a muscle in his cheek flutters. He closes his eyes and tells himself to relax, that he’s only making his headache worse.

“I'm starting to think maybe you were right,” Louis says. “When you said he was too big a mess.”

He sits down at the conference table and leans his elbows onto it, and buries his face in his arms.

Harry is quiet, tapping his foot on the carpet.

“Haz,” Louis mutters. “Say something.”

“I’ve said my piece about him,” Harry says. “Everything else is up to you.”

Louis groans and looks up him, scowling.

“You know who you remind me of sometimes?” Harry says, entirely cheerful. “Vivien Leigh. Like in _Gone With the Wind?_ ”

“Cheers. Possibly the gayest thing you’ve ever said, by the way. Might as well tell me I’m like some Broadway star from a million years ago.”

“Actually, she was on Broadway. And the last person _I_ was with was a woman, so…” Harry spreads his hands beatifically.

“Yeah, admittedly, you’ve got me there, lad,” Louis says. He jams a thumb against the nerve above his eye socket, which alleviates his headache slightly. “I can’t believe this is my life.”

“You could do worse than Liam, you know,” Harry says. “A lot worse.”

Louis sighs. “Funny, my mum said essentially the same thing.”

“Your mum and I are wise people,” Harry says, picking his coffee back up.

“So, you admit I could do worse, but here we are having a meeting about what a terrible mistake I've made,” Louis throws out, baiting him.

Harry gives him a long-suffering eye roll. “No, we’re clarifying our game plan. Don't be dramatic. 'S too early in the morning.”

Louis stares into middle distance.

“For what it's worth, Lou,” Harry says, “I don't think of this as a mistake. I don't think of it at all as something wrong you’ve done.”

His voice is warm and gentle, almost maternal. Louis breaks eye contact with him and fiddles with his hands.

“Obviously it's not ideal,” Harry says, and takes a seat at the head of the table, with Louis at his right arm. Louis is uncomfortable with the subtle symbolism of this. He and Liam run the meetings, make the decisions, go head to head with management, write the songs. Now they're the subject of the meeting, all authority ipso facto revoked, and Louis sits waiting like he's been sent down to the head teacher’s office.

“We couldn't have gotten this far,” Harry continues, “if we weren't motivated, excellent problem solvers. Excellent teammates.”

“I know,” Louis says quietly.

“It's _okay_ , Louis,” Harry says, seeking out his eye contact. “We can figure this out.”

“Coddling me only makes me nervous,” Louis says, more accusingly than he means to.

Harry smiles. “I know how terrified you are,” he says. “I know you. I know how hard it must have been to tell Jay.”

Louis pushes his fringe back off his forehead. “Yeah, it was, ah…” He draws in a shaky breath. “Didn’t feel like my finest hour.”

“You can’t think about it like that.”

“I felt like, frankly, a massive deviant fuck-up.”

“It’s not like that, Lou. It’s just love. Love is love.”

“We both know that isn’t true,” Louis says. “Or we wouldn’t be having this meeting, would we?”

His voice is sharp and piercing and he hates the sound of it.

Harry smiles at him. “It should be true,” he says, simply. “So pretend it is.”

Louis’ heart aches for Harry in a way it never has before.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry for everything you’ve dealt with, all these years.”

“None if it was your fault,” Harry says quietly. He clicks the pen he brought.

“Yeah, but…” Louis laughs an awful little laugh of regret. “Wasn’t always all that helpful, was I?”

Harry nods slowly, but Louis doesn’t get the impression it’s a nod of agreement. “Me learning to be private,” he says. “Me, I dunno, hiding certain parts of myself away… That was never something I did _to_ you. You know that, right? It was something I had to do, to survive.”

“Of course I know that, Haz.”

Harry gives him another smile, more melancholy this time. “You and I have been through a lot,” he says. “We were just dumb kids. And sometimes, Lou, it’s like… every bad or complicated thing that happens, everything that goes wrong, you secretly believe you’re at fault.”

Louis’ face gets hot.

“Liam does it too, in his own way,” Harry adds. “And you’re both in a hard position right now. So… not to get, like, preachy again…”

“Like I could stop you?”

Harry laughs. “Just… maybe help each other remember that isn’t true. That you aren’t at fault.”

Louis nods and clears his throat. “Yeah.”

After a few beats they hear the door open and they see Niall, with Liam loitering behind him.

“Oi,” Niall says quietly, seeming to size up the mood of the room. He’s got his glasses on. “Are we interrupting a session, Dr Styles?”

“Actually, sirs, you are. Very rude,” Harry says, deadpan. “No, get in here so we can get this over with.”

“That’s encouraging,” Liam says as they walk in. He looks tired; Louis had felt him tossing and turning in bed next to him the night before. He and Niall both immediately go for the coffee.

“Why does everybody look like they’re headed into an execution?” Harry says, opening his notebook. “Do we need to start off with some mindfulness?”

He’s met with a chorus of frantic _no_ ’s.

“Well, it’s sort of like,” Niall says, with a mouthful of panini, “I’ve been called in to discuss me parents’ sex life in front of my parents, but like, as a business meeting?”

“Cheers,” Louis says. “For the record, no one is discussing their sex life today.”

“What? But we _have_ to,” Niall says, gesturing and spilling a little coffee on the folding table. “Oops. Like, what about if we tour again and you’re together? Are you gonna kip together at hotels? Are you kicking me off your plane onto Harry’s? Will you have your own bus? What if some crew sees or hears --”

“Stop, stop,” Liam says, sounding embarrassed and making eye contact with nobody.

Louis runs his hands through his hair. “So already we see this meeting was a shit idea, yeah?”

“No, it’s not, and Niall’s not running things anyway,” Harry says. “Niall, I’ve got an actual agenda in mind for today, not, uh, wherever you were headed with that.”

“I’m asking some hard-hitting shit, here,” Niall says, and has a seat next to Louis. “Okay, obviously, I’m kiddin’ mostly, but I'm just saying, I’d rather bring certain things up now than later.”

“Noted,” Harry says, inclining his head at Niall.

“Over to you then, boss,” Niall says, and blows him a kiss. Harry catches it with a wry smile.

Liam sits down across from Louis and smiles at him, mouthing _hi._ Louis feels a stab of the surreal; in this situation Liam is fully his bandmate, and yet his body still reacts to Liam as a lover. They exchange playful smiles. Harry politely pretends not to notice.

“Listen, I know you’re uncomfortable, Neil,” Louis says, and bumps shoulders with him. “But do remember, I’m twice as uncomfortable by default, so you can leave the sarcastic cracks to me.”

Niall laughs. “Right. Go on, then.”

“So, like,” Harry says, and consults his notes. “First thing is, obviously, is the sort of tough question of like, long-term plans, as we’ve got fourteen more months of hiatus in front of us.”

He glances from Liam to Louis.

Louis shakes his head. “Sorry, what are you asking?”

“I think he’s asking how long we think we’re going to be together,” Liam says softly. He has his chin in his hands and is avoiding looking at Louis.

“Not _just_ that,” Harry says. “But…”

Niall takes in a breath. He’s chewing on his thumbnail; Louis idly bats his hand away from his mouth.

“I can’t imagine being able to answer that question,” Louis says. “Obviously we have no current intentions of splitting up.”

Liam bites his lip and stares down at the table. A bird chirps incessantly outside the window. Louis’ headache throbs behind his eye.

“So let’s say you’re together next time we tour,” Harry says. “And the reason I’m making this point is, you’ll have been a couple for ‘round two years at that point.”

Louis’ head jerks up and he squints at Harry. He feels utterly blindsided; his lips move silently as he checks Harry’s math. Liam’s attention is similarly rapt.

“Sorry,” Harry says. He leans over and does his hair up into a bun, then sits up again and stares at them with knitted eyebrows. “Did you not realize this?”

“Uh,” Liam says. “We’ve literally never discussed it.”

The mood in the room changes. Niall shifts uneasily in his seat.

“So,” Harry says, looking worried now, and like he’s eager to move on. “If you really want to keep this private indefinitely... it would be a question of, at some point, letting your management know…”

Louis puts his head down on the table. Closing his eyes helps his headache.

“... so we avoid stuff like that _Daily Mail_ thing… and then, you know, amongst ourselves, the biggest problem is the dynamic.”

“Dynamic?” Liam says. Louis looks up.

“On-stage,” Harry says, and then shrugs. “Off-stage as well. Interviews. Could you still be goofy together? Could you still play to the fans?”

“Harry, our basic personalities haven't changed,” Louis says, sitting up straighter. “We still goof off all the time.”

“Right,” Harry says. “But let’s say a blind comes out about you one day, and you’re on edge, that night on stage you start to overthink all your behavior.”

“Harry, how many nonsense blinds were there about _us_ over the years?” Louis exclaims.

Harry clicks his pen against the table. He looks like he’s holding back frustration. “And look what that’s done to us,” he says. “And it wasn’t even _true._ Look how much that’s pushed back me coming out. Look how much it changed our dynamic. Louis, use your head for five seconds.”

“Let’s not fight, let’s not fight,” Liam cajoles, putting a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Please.”

“ _I’m_ not fighting,” Louis snaps.

“Harry, we know, we know it’s been impossible for you all this time,” Liam says. “We want you to come out, we don’t want to get in your way. You’ve been waiting for so long. We want to make this as easy on everyone as possible, honest.”

“Can I say something, lads?” Niall says. “Why are we talking like we’re going to come back and play stadiums? I know none of us really want that, and we’ve got to be honest about returning ticket sales.”

“That’s true,” Louis says. “Good point. It’d be a more UAN sort of stage dynamic.”

“So even more cramped,” Harry says drily. “With every moment even more dissected, after we’ve been gone for so long.”

“Do you think Liam’n I are incapable of not, like, fucking each other on stage?” Louis says, leaning forward.

Liam looks deeply mortified.

“Because,” Louis continues, “for the record, you spent three weeks straight in close quarters with us and you had no idea ‘til I told you.”

“Am I several thousand very motivated fans?” Harry says, staring him down. “And of course, it’s not like I had anything else on my mind.”

“Lads, lads, please,” Niall wheedles. “Please.”

“You know us better than anyone,” Louis retorts.

“Boys,” Liam exclaims. “What are you even arguing about, here?”

Louis and Harry both look to him, annoyed, but say nothing.

“Look, obviously Harry is exhausted with the shit we deal with,” Liam says. “We all are. Harry’s got his own perspective, Louis, we might do well to listen to him, as he’s actually had years of advice and training from management on how to be discreet that we just haven’t had.”

“I acknowledge that,” Louis says. “I’d like Harold to acknowledge that I’m not an idiot.”

“I never said you were,” Harry insists, turning to him.

“And that we’re dealing with a different and unique situation.”

“I _do,_ Louis, obviously.”

Louis gets up with a sigh and walks away from the table, running his hands through his hair. He looks out the window onto the street below. There are no passing cars; it’s a beautiful and still spring morning.

“Who else are you going to tell?” Harry calls to him.

He turns. “Huh?”

“You’ve told your mum and us, who else?”

Louis puts his hands on his hips and scuffs his trainers on the carpet. “I guess my sisters, at some point,” he says. “Lottie and Fiz, anyway… I’d still like to tell Eleanor, I didn’t get the chance yesterday.”

“What about you, Liam?” Harry says.

Liam’s gaze pinballs desperately between the three of them. He fiddles with the band of his Rolex. “Dunno,” he says quietly.

Louis stares at him. “Dunno?” he repeats.

An awkward pause develops.

Harry stands.

“We’ll give you a moment,” he says, sotto voce _._ He and Niall depart to the hallway. Niall turns back in the doorway and gives Louis a complicated but sympathetic look before shutting the door behind himself.

Liam looks to Louis, clearly distressed.

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” he cries, getting to his feet and moving to the couch against the wall, which he collapses on. He presses his face into his hands.

“You’ve made it look so easy,” he mumbles. Louis feels a pang in his chest.

“It isn’t,” he says. “It isn’t at all.”

He comes over to Liam and wraps his arms around his shoulders, kissing him on the forehead and then settling onto his lap. Liam clings to him and presses his head against his chest.

“It’s all right, babe,” Louis says softly, sliding his fingers into Liam’s hair. “It’s okay. Haven’t we cried enough already this week?”

Liam laughs. “M’not crying, I promise,” he murmurs. “God, you must think I’m being such a pussy.”

“No, no, Payno,” Louis says, kissing his head again. “No, no no.”

“I don’t want to tell anyone, I just don’t,” Liam says, his voice hoarse and strained. “I love what we have, I love you, I can’t bear to think of anyone being upset by it, or thinking we’re weird or wrong. I don’t want to disappoint anyone, I don’t want to give my mum ‘n’ dad more cause to worry about me --”

“Shhh, it’s okay,” Louis whispers. “It’s all right.”

“I can’t stand imagining that, them knowing but not understanding --”

“Hey, hey,” Louis says, his voice soothing. He holds onto him tighter as they sag back against the couch as one entity. “Liam, Liam. It’s okay. It isn’t the end of the world, I promise.”

“I wish it was different,” he says, pulling away from Louis slightly to look at him.

Louis cups his face in his hands and Liam wraps both hands around Louis’ waist, to hold him steady.

“Lad,” Louis says firmly, “you have got to stop thinking like that. You have got to stop saying that you wish I was a girl and you wish no one cared and you wish we never had to tell anyone. I wish all those things too, sometimes. I hate how hard this is. It makes me so fucking angry, like. But it is what it is. It is never going to be different.”

Liam looks at him, apologetic and bleary-eyed. “There’s things I think about sometimes,” he says. “Like, what if we stay together? Sometimes I look at you and I think about… I think like… how I’d like to marry you someday. And I get so scared I feel sick.”

“Oh, Liam, Liam,” Louis murmurs. He kisses him. Liam seems to relax slightly under his touch.

After a moment, Louis draws back.

“I’m right here,” he says. “I’ve got you, Payno.”

Liam rests his forehead against Louis’ chest again. Louis wraps a hand around the back of his neck and pulls him close. They stay like that for a few moments, breathing each other in.

“It doesn’t seem fair that you’ve had to tell everyone so far,” Liam says.

“Take the time you need,” Louis says. “If you feel like you’re on some sort of schedule, it’ll just be harder, d’y’know what I mean? Just do it when you feel the time is right.”

“Maybe we could both visit with your mum soon,” Liam says. He strokes Louis’ back with his thumb. “Maybe she could help me figure out what to say to my mum… and then maybe we could tell my mum, together?”

“Of course, if you need me there, lad. Absolutely. Whatever you need.”

They sit for a moment holding each other. Louis listens to Liam’s breathing steadily even out.

“Let’s have them back in,” he says, and Liam nods.

Louis pokes his head out the door into the hallway, where Niall and Harry are embroiled in quiet conversation. They look up at him and fall silent. Louis feels the singular impression of their eyes on him; he feels marked in some way.

“All right in there?” Niall says, shifting from one foot to the other. Harry stays silent and examines his nails.

“Fine,” Louis says, and he thinks again of how acutely the band has split into two pairs. He experiences a stab of guilt, but wonders if this was not always on the horizon, if this is the way things were meant to unfold. He thinks about how strange and unmoored he would feel if it had been Niall and Harry who were revealed to be sleeping together; if he had had to suddenly confront the reality of a secret world that had bloomed between them without him being any the wiser.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Niall looks surprised and comes toward him, hugging him. “Sorry? What’re you sorry for?”

“About this,” Louis mutters into his shoulder. “About all of it. I’m sorry.”

“You should be,” Harry intones, clearly joking. He comes over and wraps his long arms around both of them. “Niall and I were going to go to YSL today.”

“We love you both,” Niall says. “Cop on, lad. I mean, I know it’s only been nigh on six fuckin’ years now...”

Louis laughs and laughs. “I’ve had a shit week, all right? Let me be stupid and insecure.”

“No, I’m afraid that’s not allowed,” Harry says, and squeezes them both tighter.

 

/

 

An hour later Harry has helped hash out a lot of little details for them: names of people in the recording biz who can keep quiet, names of friendly reps, the name of a realtor they can rely on to plant a false story about Liam buying a house in London that will allow him to pretend to move out of Louis’ place, places they can vacation without being bothered if they so desire, gay women who are in need of mutual bearding opportunities, and a whole host of other solutions to potential problems, many of which Louis hadn’t even thought of.

“Can’t believe I’m the only straight member of One Direction,” Niall says as he raids the catering table of its pastries and everyone else collects up their things. “Did not anticipate this.”

“What? I’m straight,” Louis insists. “With limited exceptions.”

“Sorry? What is _that?_ ” Harry says, laughing. He imitates Louis. “‘I’m straight, with limited commercial interruptions.’”

“Oh, sod off...”

“Well, see, I get that, though,” Niall says. “There's a select few blokes that could get it in, just goin’ off athletic ability. Like I respect them too much t’ turn ‘em down, if it came up.”

Louis laughs. “Yeah, there you go.”

Liam is quiet, but seems reassured and more placid. He keeps seeking out Louis’ gaze, like he needs the comfort of it. Louis reaches over and squeezes his hand. Liam squeezes back.

“Would you two like to come to this yacht party on the Thames tomorrow?” Harry says, stretching and yawning. “Niall already said no.”

“‘Cos no offense, it sounds dead borin’,” Niall says. “Anyway, I’ve got a date with my TV.”

“Who’s throwing this?” Louis says.

“Jeff,” Harry says, fiddling with his hair. “You don’t _have_ to come. It’s just, if you were looking for a bit of quick publicity...”

“We are,” Louis says. He looks to Liam, and Liam looks back with his head bowed slightly as if to defer to him. “We both are. Uh, I was maybe going clubbing with Oli ‘n Calvin ‘n them tomorrow night, though.”

Harry chuckles. “This is better, trust me. I’ll text you.”

“Right, Harold. Will the Queen be there?”

“Not unless I’m misinformed about her stance on naked hot tubbing...”

Niall laughs through a mouthful of pastry.

 

/

 

That night Louis lies awake next to Liam, who is finally and blissfully sacked out and snoring next to him.

What Liam said about wanting to marry him has terrified him, not because he’d never considered it himself, but because he has been content so far in pretending that these thoughts don’t actively occur to Liam. For the last six months they’ve floated along in their private little dinghy, and lately he feels as if they’ve finally made landfall.

“Husband,” he murmurs, stroking Liam’s arm. Liam stirs in his sleep. “God… sounds fucking bizarre... _Have you met my husband, Liam Payne_?”

Louis lays his head down on his pillow, watching Liam’s peaceful sleeping face. He feels an immense undertow of love drag him downward, quieting his anxiety.

“My boy,” he says softly, and drifts off to sleep.

 

/

 

When they arrive at the dock, Louis is already half drunk off of limo champagne and hasn’t been able to keep his hands off Liam the entire ride over.

“Lou,” Liam says, chuckling and holding Louis’ wrists tightly together with very little effort, which only serves to turn him on more. “We’re here tonight to look like single pussyhounds, right? Like, that’s the impression I got?” He pauses, momentarily distracted. “Is that Una Foden, walking past our car?”

“Pussyhounds?” Louis says with a playful smile, stroking his cock through his jeans. “I can’t believe you just said that, Payno. I’m like to pretend I don’t know you, now.”

“And yet, you’ve still got your little paws all over my crotch.”

“I know, it’s a curse,” Louis says, his voice rising into a breathy whine. He leans in, lips close to Liam’s ear. “You say such stupid shit, but I can’t seem to stop thinking about that big cock of yours...”

Liam exhales. “Louis, stop, stop.”

“Am I getting you hard?” Louis nips at his ear.

Liam puts his hands firmly on Louis’ shoulders and pushes him back. “Lad, get yourself sorted so you can go in there and give a good performance.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Louis sighs, falling back into his own seat. “After this, we should be set for a while.”

“Exactly, and then I can catch up on _Celebrity Big Brother_ in peace.”

“Let’s go find Harold, then.”

It’s a beautiful crisp night. A full moon glimmers off the dark Thames, and the yacht is brand-new and still giving off a sharp scent of sandalwood. They pass a growing line of waiting hopefuls and are let up the stairs by security. Kendrick Lamar’s new single is blasting and waiters mill around with cocktails, but the party is clearly still in early stages. A few models sit on a couch with a stand-up Louis recognizes but can’t name, and various footballers and musicians are wandering around, drinking and making quiet small-talk. The upper deck is empty so far, but a hot tub is on and bubbling.

They finally spot Harry standing by the railing, flirting amiably with an Everton second-stringer that Louis knows is gay.

“Hey,” says Louis as they approach.

“Heyyy,” Harry says, coyly holding his drink up to the side of his face and beaming. Louis can tell he’s sloshed.

“Evening,” Liam says, sounding stiff and paternal. Louis makes a mental note to get a drink in his hand as soon as possible.

“Louis Tomlinson!” the footballer exclaims. “Hey there, name’s Jamie. I think it’s great what you’ve done for the Rovers.”

“Cheers, mate,” Louis says, shaking his hand and giving him a genuine smile.

“I’m just talking to Harry here, I had no idea, but he follows Everton.”

Liam laughs out loud at the same time Louis says, “ _Does_ he?”

Harry, still smiling, mouths “ _shut up”_ at them.

Louis grabs a cocktail from a passing waiter and hands it to Liam. “So what are we drinking, Haz?”

“I think those orange ones are Grand Marnier, Cointreau, orange zess… zets… _zest,_ simple syrup, and gold leaf.”

“Sounds good,” says Liam, taking a sip.

“I’ve had several, they’re very good,” Harry says. “ _Very_ strong. I’ll be falling down soon.”

“I play goal, I’ll catch you,” Jamie offers. Harry laughs like that’s absolutely hilarious.

“Maybe just have the one then, Payno,” Louis mutters.

“We’ll see,” Liam says.

Louis turns and gives him a look. Liam just raises an eyebrow, his dark eyes twinkling.

“Where’s Jeff?” says Louis, rounding on Harry.

“Heee’s... not actually here,” Harry says. “Too busy. But he gave me the boat for the night, invited everyone, all that…”

A silence grows from the mention of Jeff that feels unwieldy and potentially dangerous. Harry plays with a wristband, looking off the side of the boat into the distance.

“So how’d you two meet?” Liam says, saving them.

“At a club,” Jamie says, and he flushes a little and clears his throat. “So when's the rest of the party showing up?”

“I expect ‘round an hour from now,” Harry says. “No one wants to be early… Hey, sorry, but do you mind if I grab a moment alone with these two?”

“Oh, no, go ahead,” Jamie says.

Harry takes Louis and Liam by the sleeves and leads them through the party. Louis recognizes some familiar faces and exchanges a few waves as Harry pulls them into the opulent hallway of the cabin and shuts the door behind them.

“So,” Harry says. “What’s the plan?”

He puts a hand on Liam’s shoulder to steady himself as he ties the laces on his boot back up. Liam holds him by the waist and looks to Louis.

Louis shrugs. “Dunno,” he says. “What’s the photo coverage like?”

“Well, there’s paps…” Harry points past his right shoulder. “Across the street, and they should be able to get shots of most of the deck. And people will have their phones out all night.”

“I can dance with some girls,” Louis says, folding his arms and looking down at his shoes.

This is met with a silence that Harry breaks by saying, “I have to do a wee… I can’t remember which door’s the bathroom?”

They help him search, opening one gorgeous gold-detailed wood door after another. Outside, the muffled party noises are rising in volume. Liam finishes his drink and sets the glass down on an ancient-looking accent table.

“Found it,” Harry calls.

He shuts the door behind him and Louis approaches Liam and presses him against the wall, cupping his jaw with his hands. Liam smiles at him and closes his own hands around Louis’.

“Hi Payno,” Louis murmurs. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Liam assures him. “Just sort of counting down to when we can go.”

“I know, me too.” Louis sighs and leans into him, feeling solace in the warmth and breadth of Liam’s body. Liam strokes the back of his head.

Louis draws back. “You look fit tonight, by the way,” he says, his voice low and throaty. “Did I mention that?”

“I sort of got the hint earlier,” Liam says, grinning. 

“You look like, Beckham-y.”

“I think you’re a little drunk.”

“Think you’re about to be a little drunk, too,” Louis purrs. “Finished that drink pretty fast.”

“So what special privileges does being Beckham get?” Liam says, gazing at him with half-lidded dark eyes. “Is it like birthday privileges?”

Louis considers this, biting his lip as he does. “I might let Beckham spank me,” he says. “If he’s gentle.”

“Oh, he’d be gentle,” Liam says. “He’d try, anyway.” His voice rumbles pleasantly, and Louis leans in to kiss him. Liam sucks hard on his bottom lip, and his hands drift down to Louis’ ass.

The door bangs open next to them and Harry appears.

“I heard that last bit,” he tells them, frowning and staggering around as he does up his belt.

“Sorry, sorry!” Liam says, flushing. Louis just rolls his eyes.

 

/

 

Louis has got another couple of drinks in him when Oli texts him.

He cups his hand around his phone and squints against his drunken vision. Around him, the party is fully underway; the deck is packed and between whooping and laughter and music he can barely hear anything. Liam is across the way from him chatting up a rapper and several producers. Throughout the night they've been separated and keep exchanging surreptitious glances with each other; the self-satisfied glances lovers give each other in public when they know they'll be together again before long.

The text from Oli reads _so whyd you cancel tonite? cant get into the club without u_

Louis sighs and considers his response carefully before writing, _Had to go to this yacht party theres a load of industry people couldnt pass it up_

 _Rite rite_ , Oli says. _so this isnt just u blowing us off ?_

Louis is annoyed enough to want to forgo a response entirely, but he sends a few question marks.

 _Uve been a ghost lately,_ Oli says. _ur being a lameass. u got a girl we dont know about or smtn?_

 _Im fucking knackered Oli ive just been having a lowkey time of it,_ Louis writes, stopping himself from adding something nasty about how they always seem most concerned with his wellbeing when it affects them personally.

 _Whatever_ , is the response he gets.

“Christ,” he says under his breath. A model glances at him, then gives him the standard polite smile you get as a recognizably famous person.

Louis stares at her. She's objectively gorgeous. A year ago he certainly would have tried to sleep with her.

He shoves his phone in his pocket. There’s nothing anyone can say to him right now that he wants to hear. He wonders again, as he has now a thousand times, if he and Liam have done the wrong thing; if he’s dragging Liam off a cliff with him.

Louis has difficulty trusting his own judgment. Enough times now, he’s done something that felt like the right thing to do, the _only_ thing to do, and had it implode on him.  

He looks at Liam from across the boat. He’s deep in conversation with Hudson Mohawke, smiling that wide, unguarded smile of his that makes Louis’ heart twist with affection.

Liam trusts Louis more than Louis trusts himself.

“Hi there,” someone says from in front of him.

Louis’ head turns. It’s Kylie Jenner, offering him another drink.

“I’m fine, thanks,” he says, and waits for her to leave. She doesn’t. She sips at the drink herself and starts twirling one overlong nail in her hair, her pretty face lit dimly by a massive candle that sits on the low table beside them, burning and steadily dripping wax onto its pristine white surface.

Kylie indicates Harry by pointing. “He told me to come see you…”

Louis’ heart jumps in his chest. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Sit with me,” he mutters, backing up and collapsing onto a couch that’s the same frigid white as the table. An actor he can’t place is sat next to him, talking to a standing EastEnders actress, and he gives Louis a look of offense.

“Budge up,” Louis says. “Go on. If she’s not sitting, take ‘er somewhere else. Let the lady sit.”

The actor huffs but he takes the actress by the elbow and pulls her away. Kylie sits. In front of them, crowded around the table and another couch, is a chatting throng of people that pays them no mind except the occasional appraising glance. They’re cozied up between the cabin and the railing; the yacht disengaged from the dock by a matter of metres once all the important players were aboard, and now they sit in the middle of the Thames, gently rocking to and fro. Louis closes his eyes for a moment. He loves boats, loves the water.

“So what’d Harry say?” he says quietly.

Kylie shrugs. She’s chewing gum. “Not much. You’re looking for a publicity makeout, or something like that?”

She speaks in a low and business-like tone, like she’s familiar with this sort of transaction to the point of mundanity.

Louis knows that Harry does this; that he did it with Kendall, that it’s normal for him. He can’t help but be bone-deep repulsed by the idea. He’s hardly good at public affection to begin with, let alone faking it.

“God _,_ ” he says, rather unpleasantly.

Kylie removes her gum with dainty fingers and tosses it into the river. “You don’t have to sound so grossed out. Are you gay?”

“No, ’m not _gay,_ ” he says, so quietly he’s mouthing the word gay without saying it. “Not any of your business, either, that.”

Kylie nods. “Okay, so like... you’re covering for a secret girlfriend? Something like that? It’s whatever, I don’t really care what your thing is.”

Louis’ head swims with intoxication and fear. “Hold on a sec,” he says, and pulls his phone back out, ignoring ten or so new texts from Calvin.

 _Have to ask u something,_ he texts Liam, and then surreptitiously observes him.

Liam pulls his phone out of his pocket. He smiles upon seeing a text from Louis, and Louis feels a pang in his chest.

 _Shoot,_ Liam says.

 _i guess harry said summat to kylie jenner about i need publicity and shes offering to snog me for photo coverage_ , Louis types, all in a rush, then clutches his phone in his sweaty fist.

Liam looks up and then finds his face in the crowd. His face is unusually inscrutable. Louis’ eyes bore into his, looking for a cue, and finds nothing.

Liam drops his head to his phone again.

 _okay_ , he writes back. _go ahead... no tongue please_

Louis heaves a sigh, more of resignation than relief. He rounds on Kylie.

“What do you know?” he snaps at her under his breath. She raises her eyebrows and holds her hands up in mock surrender.

“Dude,” she says. “Chill. Literally nothing?”

“What’s in this for you?” Louis demands.

Kylie twirls her hair again and smiles cannily at him. “I want to get into music,” she says. “But not the stupid way Kim did. Like, for real. I wanna do it right.”

Louis knits his eyebrows. “I can’t promise you anything.”

“You don’t have to. I just want to be seen with you.”

“You probably think I’ve got more sway than I actually do,” he says.

She shakes her head. “Nooo. Your stock’s rising. That show you’re on, when does that film?”

“X Factor? You mean X Factor? August.”

Kylie nods. “Yeah,” she says. “So.”

Louis shakes his head. “I’m not sure how your logic works.”

“I know what I’m doing,” she says. “Trust me.”

Louis swallows and reaches in his pocket for a cigarette. “Move to the railing with me,” he says.

She complies and they stand there, the night breeze whipping their faces. It’s cold, and Louis leans into it.

He lights a cigarette and offers her a puff.

Kylie makes a face. “I just smoked, that’s why I had gum.”

“Well,” he says, tapping the pack against his palm and squinting into the wind, “ _I’m_ smoking, so.”

She looks at him out of the corner of her eye. “You’re being weird,” she accuses.

“Not really,” Louis says, blowing out smoke and dropping his lighter back into his pocket. Behind him, he hears a stand-up makes some truly moronic joke about his MP, to the chagrined laughter of several women.

“Either you want to kiss or you don’t,” Kylie says, drawing out the o in don’t.

“I don’t _want_ to kiss,” he tells her, “but we’re going to.”

“Right, yeah, whatever. This is a good spot,” she says, and points across the Thames. “See on the top of that parking deck? Paps.”

Louis looks and finds she’s right. Under the lights of London, he can see the distinctive glow of a large white lens from beside a parked car.

“And good for Snapchat, too,” she murmurs. “We’ll have to keep it up for like, a minute and a half if we want people to get something good.”

Louis stares at her. “You’re a pro at this.”

She laughs and rolls her eyes without responding.

“Okay,” Louis says, ashing his cigarette and allowing it to fall, still lit, into the darkness of the river. He takes a long breath.

“Let’s go, then.”

Kylie looks at him through the haze of cigarette smoke and leans up into his mouth. Their lips touch. Louis feels flung from his body and has a sensation of watching the kiss unfold from above. He senses eyes on them. Her mouth is dispassionate, almost clinical. She’s skilled in making that which is not a tongue kiss look like one; he’s aware that anyone who’s watching is likely fully buying into the fiction of it.

Louis feels compelled to touch her somehow and slides his arm around her waist. She allows a curtain of hair to fall in front of their faces, and he pushes her against the wall of the cabin, all the better to disguise the kiss with a false sense of urgency.

Her lips feel nice. In his heart of hearts he knows that he’s missed snogging women, that he’s missed the smoothness of their skin and the softness of their lips.

Something comes over him, however, the longer they kiss. It’s a feeling of melancholy, an awareness of an absence that sits like a ball of burrs in his chest. He misses _Liam_ , he wants Liam. He wants his smell and the irksome combined scrape of their facial hair and Liam’s big chest and big hands and how he holds onto Louis like he’s something precious and easily lost. He wants Liam’s sweet doe eyes and snub nose and how he laughs at every idiot thing Louis says. He wants Liam on top of him and under him and behind him and inside him and beside him.

He wants his best mate. He aches for him.

Louis pulls back from Kylie and they look at each other. The party noise around them has quieted slightly; people are interested in this new coupling. He hears the distinct shutter noise of multiple iPhones.

“Good?” she mouths.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “That’ll do.”

When they separate, the people who were rubbernecking now feign engrossment in their phones or their conversations. The actor who annoyed him earlier offers him a low-five and Louis looks him up and down with distaste. He seeks Liam’s eyes out.

Liam is looking away from him, pretending he didn’t see, nodding vigorously at whatever Hudson is saying. Louis can tell from the hard set of his mouth and the shine of his eyes that he’s upset.

“Shit,” he mutters, “shit, shit.”

He wants to go to Liam, to reassure him, to kiss him on the lips in front of everyone present.

“Hey,” Kylie says in his ear. “Come with me into the cabin, okay? My friends are in the, like, parlor room thing with a ton of coke and they want me to meet them and if you and I, y’know, disappear together? It’ll really sell it.”

Louis feels like he’s on a derailed train, hurtling through space. His mouth is dry. He nods, not knowing how else to respond. She takes him by the hand and pulls him toward the door.

Once inside, Louis closes his eyes and catches his breath. He fumbles with his phone in his pocket. Kylie watches him with large, impassive eyes.

“Oh, shit, where are my manners?” she says, laughing. “Do you want some coke too?”

“No,” he says, flapping a dismissive hand at her. “Go ahead. Thanks for… you know.”

Louis knows he doesn’t sound at all sincere, but she doesn’t seem to care; she nods and bounces away.

He texts Liam, _come find me when u can get away. 2nd bedroom on the left_

Louis opens the door and sits down on the immaculate bedspread. The sway of the boat, which would ordinarily comfort him, is making his alcohol-heavy stomach roil. A grandfather clock sits across from him, its pendulum swinging ominously. He watches it go back and forth, digging his nails into his palms.

He hears the door open and whips around, getting to his feet, his posture apologetic.

Liam closes the door and leans against it, not looking at him. His gaze is fixed on the floor. His eyes are two dark rooms.

“Liam, I’m sorry,” Louis exclaims, beseeching. “I’m sorry.”

“I told you to do it,” Liam murmurs. He folds his arms.

Louis shakes his head. He feels bile rising in his throat and swallows.

“Doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have,” he says. “I should have thought it through better.”

Louis approaches him and reaches out to cup his face with his hands. Liam grabs him by the wrists before his touch can land.

Louis drops his arms.

“It’s not your fault,” Liam says.

“It’s _someone’s_ fault,” Louis says, louder than he intends to. “You’re hurt, I hurt you.”

Liam shakes his head. “I told you to do it,” he says again, sounding more like he’s talking to himself.

“Liam…”

“Did you enjoy it at all?” Liam asks. He looks away and bites his lip, as if he hadn’t meant to say that.

“What?” Louis says, aghast. “Liam, for fuck’s sake, no.”

“I wouldn’t be angry if you did,” Liam says, his voice small.

“You’re allowed to be angry, Liam!”

“So did you?”

“ _No,_ no, God,” Louis says, his voice wheedling. “Liam, what’re you talking about, what’s going on? I’ve never even seen you like this.”

It’s barely out of his mouth when he realizes he _has_ seen Liam like this -- over Danielle, over Sophia.

“Liam, look at me, look at me,” Louis murmurs.

With great effort, Liam drags his gaze to Louis’ face. In the dim light, with this helpless look he’s got, he looks painfully childlike. Louis wants to hold him.

“I just didn’t expect it to hurt me that much,” Liam says. “It’s... I dunno, Louis. I drank too much, I’m tired, I feel sick. I’m just going to go home.”

“Let me come with you,” Louis urges.

Liam bites his lip. “Let me be alone awhile, Louis. Stay here, talk to people. Keep, ah… selling it.”

“Liam…”

“It’s okay. I just need to sober up.”

“I did it for _us_ ,” Louis says, his throat tight. “You know that. We talked about this type of thing, Harry told us how smart it is, we agreed, you agreed.”

Liam’s gaze wanders, fixed on something over Louis’ head. “I know,” he says. He sounds hoarse. “I just didn’t know how bad it would feel seeing it.”

“Liam, Christ...”

Liam looks to him again and strokes his hair away from his face. “I’ll see you later,” he says, giving Louis a bittersweet smile.

“Liam…”

His protests are wasted as Liam pulls away from him and departs, letting the door fall closed behind him.

Louis stands there, shocked by what’s just happened, his reflexes slowed by alcohol.

Less than a minute later, the door opens again. Louis opens his mouth to snap at whoever it is, but it’s Harry, looking worried.

“Is everything okay?” he whispers. “Liam just rushed out.”

Louis clenches his jaw and sighs. “He’s upset.”

Harry shakes his head in confusion. “You did run that kiss by him first?”

“Of course I did!”

Harry rubs his eyes. “This is my fault,” he says. “It’s on me. I shouldn’t have pushed you to do something like that so soon.”

“It’s _not_ your fault,” Louis says. He raises his voice. “Harry. It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”

Harry looks up and pushes his hair from his face, his bracelets jangling.

“You know how Liam is,” Harry says. “He’s just sensitive. He’ll be okay.”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

“Louis…”

Harry trails off and seems to be weighing his words. Louis stares at him.

“What?” he demands.

“Nothing,” Harry finally says. He shakes his head. “Nothing.”

“I’m going after him,” Louis says. He thinks for a second, then swears. “He probably took our car. My wallet’s in there.”

“I’ll call you another one,” Harry says, ducking out of the room.

 

/

 

Louis drums his hands on the armrest, his head tipped back against his seat. No music is playing; his driver, Sean, had been listening to The Weeknd when he got in, which had ended and transitioned into one of Zayn’s new singles. Sean had quite nearly steered the car into a ditch lunging to turn it off.

“How about some silence,” Louis had said, and was met with vigorous nodding and a “yes sir”.

Now he sits up and addresses Sean again, leaning over the partition.

“Traffic’s that bad tonight?” he says, his impatience evident in his voice.

“Aye, I'm sorry, sir. It's Friday night downtown, it's always like this. I am taking back routes, I'll have you there in ‘round twenty minutes. Again, apologies.”

“Not your fault,” Louis says, sitting back down. “Don’t worry about it.”

He'd waited a few minutes before ditching the boat, wanting to give Liam some time to decompress and not wanting to waste the plausible deniability that kissing Kylie had bought them by immediately rushing out of a party after Liam. Grimshaw had appeared, putting Louis further on edge. He feels as if anyone could smell the poof on him, it would be Nick.

“You lot have surprised me,” Nick commented, sniffing a little leftover coke off the side of his hand. “Don't look too shabby considering you've been unemployed for five months.” He gives Louis a onceover. “Harry's kept it tight better than anyone, though.”

“Yeah,” Louis scoffed. “Such a looker you are, Nick, bad job you're on the radio and not the telly.”

Nick put his hands up. “What nerve did I hit? Just a bit of banter.”

Louis sighed. “I'm in a shit mood.”

“Want to talk about it?” Nick said, moving to sit next to him.

Louis had stood. “No. I'm on my way out.”

A small part of him wishes he had just said fuck it all and come clean. Once he got over the initial shock, Nick would have given him more frank advice than anyone else. His mum thinks too highly of him to tell it to him straight, Harry's too blinkered by his own closet, and Niall’s never even been in a real relationship.

Sitting in the town car, watching pools of streetlight pass by his window, he suddenly realizes that if this had happened a year ago, he would have gone to Zayn. Zayn would have been honest with him. Zayn knew and loved both him and Liam so thoroughly, he would have undoubtedly been their rock.

Louis also knows if Zayn hadn't left, hadn't become paranoid and hard and bitter, he and Liam wouldn't have gotten together in the first place. There wouldn't have been the same late-night manic excursions followed by snuggles that sometimes ended in spooning, brought on by stress and grief. They wouldn’t have had to make up for his absence for increasingly amped up stage gay that got harder and harder to tell from the real thing. They wouldn’t have gotten so close to steadily blur the line between friends and lovers, there wouldn’t be the same stinging wound in Louis’ heart that could only be soothed by Liam's careful, doting, singular love.

His phone rings. He looks down. It's Hattie.

“I'm not in the mood,” he says, by way of answering the call.

“Don't really care,” she says. “What's this Kylie Jenner thing?”

Louis pinches the bridge of his nose. “I got drunk and snogged someone at a party, isn't that what you wanted?”

“You got drunk and sucked face with a Kardashian on Azoff’s boat, is what you did.”

“Ohhh, and is everyone over at Modest very nervous?” he says mockingly.

“Then you went downstairs and had it off with her in some coke den, is the report I'm getting. And the one the Sun is running with in less than an hour, I might add.”

“Good, let them.”

“I said get a girlfriend if you could, not this. We didn't want this.”

“You get what I decide you'll get.”

“Louis, is something wrong? You've never talked to me like this. Since I was hired I've heard some stories about you, but…”

“There's one difficult bitch in every band,” Louis rejoinders. “Or are you brand new to the business?”

“Look, just let’s put a story together, at least.”

“Hattie, I haven't done coke in years. Aside from that, say whatever you want.”

“Did you fuck her?”

“I didn't fuck her,” he says, heaving a long sigh. “They can say I felt her up or summat. That we were _canoodling_ , whatever. I really don't care.”

“Fine. I'll let them know. It's out there already, of course, on the blogs.”

“Great.”

“Everyone snapped you, the photos are everywhere. Want to know what the hashtag is? #GotATenner. Like with a question mark.”

“Catchy! Even better.”

“I'll talk to you later, Tomlinson,” Hattie says, and hangs up.

Louis throws his phone at the door opposite him. It hits and thumps to the carpet, face-down.

 

/

 

“Liam,” Louis calls, as soon as he's inside his house.

There's no answer, and Watson doesn't come running to greet him. Louis stalks through the house, heart thumping, shouting Liam's name over and over until he sees a note on the fridge.

 

_Im exactly where you think I am_

_Dont worry_

_Ring me when you see this_

_LP_

 

Louis races back out of the house and bangs the door open to Sean's car.

“Sorry,” he says. “I'm going to need you for a while longer, if that's all right.”

“That’s just fine, Mr Tomlinson. Whatever you like.”

“Take me to Liam's place in Surrey,” he says.

Louis leans back as the car lurches into motion. He has no interest in talking this out over the phone.

 

/

 

Liam lies on the couch in his den, smoking a spliff he found in the cushions that he assumes Louis left behind at some point. Flames crackle merrily in his fireplace.

He had started up Uncharted 4 and found himself unable to concentrate; the paused game waits for him to return to it as he stares at the ceiling.

His phone rings. His heart jumps, expecting Louis, but it’s only his head of security Robbie.

“Hey,” he says, trying to hide his dejection.

“‘Ey, Liam, uh, so Louis Tomlinson is down here at your front gate…”

Liam sits up. “He is?”

In the background of the call he hears Louis pipe up, “Just let me in, for fuck’s sake!”

“Yeah, I just wasn’t sure if you were expecting visitors tonight.”

“We’re in a _band_ together!” Louis shouts.

“No, of course, Robbie, let him up. Sorry for the confusion.”

“Right, will do.”

“Tell him I’m in the den in the basement.”

Liam sets his phone down. His heart has sped up. He wants to see Louis badly, but he’s spooked by the intensity of his earlier feelings.

To the best of Liam’s recollection, prior to tonight he’d yet to expose the extent of his jealousy to Louis. He still sometimes feels stung by how fondly Louis talks about Eleanor, and he doesn’t like thinking about how in the spring and summer of last year Louis would sometimes be out clubbing and partying and sleeping with girls he’d just met before coming back to the hotel and sliding into Liam’s bed next to him, high, whispering _“don’t wake up, it’s just me, I can’t get to sleep”_.

At the time, he allowed himself to believe the resulting tightness in his chest was just worry. He talked too often and too much about Louis’ partying to Sophia, who started to give him a certain _look_ out of the corner of her eye whenever he started in.

Louis is the one who feels his jealousy rather freely. He tenses up when Liam mentions his own exes, and he bristles at the comments gay men leave Liam on Twitter.

“That’s _my_ cock,” Louis had wailed the other day in mock-frustration from over Liam’s shoulder as he scrolled through his mentions and laughed at the creativity of the come-ons therein. “Don’t these blokes get enough cock? Tell them to get their own, Liam. Tweet that, right now.”

Liam’s jealousy, conversely, has always been embarrassing to him. In his eyes, it’s too revealing of a certain kind of insecurity. He hides it well and always has; he used to laugh good-naturedly when his mates flirted with Sophia, despite how small and invisible it made him feel. It was all worth it later, when she would remark on how easy-going a boyfriend he was and reward him accordingly.

“Liam,” Louis calls from the hallway.

Liam tosses the spliff into an ashtray and sits up. “In here!”

“Liam, Liam, Liam,” Louis says, appearing in the doorway looking disheveled and emotional. He tosses his jacket off onto the floor as he approaches and stands in front of Liam, biting his lip, looking as if he wants to come closer but is waiting on permission.

Liam stretches his arms out and Louis collapses into them.

“Liam,” he murmurs, kissing him on the cheeks and nose and stroking his arms.

“Hey,” Liam says. His throat feels tight.

“I’m sorry,” Louis says, drawing back from him and looking at him. His pretty, feline features are furrowed in a look of worry.

Liam sighs. He presses his hand to the dip of Louis’ waist, feeling the warmth of him, appreciating the weight of Louis in his lap.

“It’s okay,” he says. “It’s okay. You were doing what we basically said we’d do, you had my permission...”

Louis shakes his head vehemently. “I should have read into it. I should have understood you better. I was drunk and stupid, I can be an insensitive prat sometimes.”

Liam is silent. He leans back against the couch and Louis slides sideways off his lap, settling into the crook of his arm, and studies his face.

“What’s wrong, lad?” he says.

Liam shrugs. He feels himself clamming up. Many things are wrong, and he’s afraid he can articulate approximately zero of them.

“Liam, c’mon. It’s me.”

Liam feels himself getting teary-eyed and swallows it back down. “I just drank too much is all.”

“No, you’re upset.”

Liam closes his eyes.

“Hey,” Louis says, coming closer to him again, stroking his face. “Hey, hey.”

“You like girls,” Liam mutters under his breath.

“What? You mumbled.”

“I said…” The leather of the couch squeaks under him as Liam shifts his weight, pulling away from Louis, refusing to look at him. “You like girls.”

Louis’ hands drop. He says nothing for a moment, then: “Well, of course I do.”

“So,” Liam says in an exhale, “maybe you shouldn’t be with me. Maybe you should, y’know, be with girls.”

“Liam, _what_? What the fuck are you talking about?” He feels Louis trying to seek out his eye contact. “You like girls too!”

“Yeah, but I’m getting more open to the possibility I might not, y’know, always only like girls,” Liam says.

He watches the fireplace crackle. The room is too large for the fire to warm it properly; Liam is chilly.

Louis seems at a loss, which is unusual for him.

“So,” he finally says. “I’m going to leave you for a girl, just because you’re the only bloke I want to be with? Is that it? Liam, that’s fucked. I don’t assume you’re going to leave me for a bloke _or_ a girl.”

“I’m not assuming that,” Liam cries, “Shit, Louis, I never said you’d _leave_ me.”

Louis gets up and stands in front of him, putting his hands on his shoulders. Liam looks blearily up at him.

“D’y’know what I thought when Jenner was snogging me?” Louis says. His voice is firm and his eyes are flinty. “I thought, right, this fucking sucks, I’m kissing a really fit girl and all I can think about is how much I wish I was kissing Liam.”

Liam grips Louis’ wrists. “Louis…”

“No, let me finish,” he says. “I can’t believe you’d doubt me, Liam. It’s not like you don’t know how much I love you.”

Liam breathes in again, choking back emotion. Louis watches him with a careful, analytical expression, like he’s trying to put a puzzle together.

“I know, I know,” he says, and he does know. “It’s not that.”

“Is this about what we talked about in the meeting?” Louis says shrewdly, coming nearer to him again. Liam wraps his arms around Louis’ waist and pulls him in, resting his face against Louis’ stomach. Louis allows this, maybe because of how upset Liam is, and runs his hands through his hair and cradles his head.

“Is it?”

“Probably, yeah,” Liam says, with a shaky sigh.

“Ohh, Liam,” Louis says, chuckling. “What am I going to do with you? My hopeless romantic.”

“I can’t believe I said I wanted to marry you,” Liam groans, running his hands over Louis’ back.

“Like it’s never crossed _my_ mind?” Louis scoffs.

Liam’s heartbeat quickens. He pulls back from Louis and looks at him, deep into his eyes, searching for any kind of insincerity. He finds none. Louis’ gaze is steady.

Liam breathes in deeply. He feels the entire earth has just shifted on its axis. He stays very still, like a butterfly's landed on him.

Louis settles into his lap again and cups his jaw in one hand. The look on his face is utterly soft, with lips gently parted and cheeks pink. He looks at Liam lovingly and with great care, stroking his hair off of his forehead.

“What’d you think, that I wasn’t in this for the long haul?” he murmurs.

“I don’t know,” Liam confesses. “We never really talked about it.”

“Well, now you know,” Louis says. “You’re my boy, Liam.”

Liam pulls him down and into a kiss. Louis moans a little and presses his body against Liam. His mouth opens up for him and Liam slides his tongue in, holding Louis’ jaw with one hand and cupping the decadent flare of his hip with the other. He wants to bury himself inside of Louis like an axe into wood, and stay lodged there for days.

Liam draws back slightly. “Do you want to have sex?” he murmurs.

“Yeah, yeah,” Louis says, kissing his forehead. “Absolutely.”

Louis slides off his lap and takes his hand, pulling him up off the couch and toward the warmth of the fire. He turns back to Liam and starts unbuttoning his shirt with his small, quick hands.

“D’you want to talk more?” Liam says, worried they’re barrelling past the rest of their conversation. Louis looks up at him and flashes the smile he loves so much.

“We’ve got all night to talk,” he says, in his light, sweet voice. “We can spend all tomorrow talking, if you like.”

Comforted, Liam kisses him again. Louis starts to sink to the floor and pulls Liam along with him, until they’re on their sides on the soft rug in front of the fireplace. Louis rubs his knee against Liam’s half-hard cock through his trousers. Liam sighs with pleasure and runs his fingers through Louis’ soft hair.

“Have you got lube?” he says.

“Oh, shit, actually yes,” Louis says. “In my overnight bag...”

They kiss for a few more moments and then Louis gets up and goes for the door where he dropped his bag and jacket.

Liam rolls onto his back and looks at the ceiling.

“Do you think it’s bad I ran out of the party?” he calls. “Not like I literally scarpered, but I didn’t say goodbye to anyone...”

“That’s why I stayed a little longer,” Louis says, returning with the lube in his hand. He kneels and leans over Liam, stroking his hair off of his forehead again, his eyes roving over his face.

“Why do you like me so much?” Liam blurts out.

Louis just laughs. “Why d’you like _me_ so much?”

Liam shrugs. “You’re… _Louis_. I don’t know. You’re hilarious, you’re fun, we make a great team. You’re wicked smart, you don’t put up with anything. You’ve got a stonking great arse.”

“Don’t stop,” Louis says, tracing circles on his chest and smiling a satisfied little smile. “Have I got to list things, now?”

Liam’s heart flutters. He can never understand how Louis still makes him feel like he’s fourteen with his first real crush. “If you like,” he says.

Louis lowers his voice in imitation. “ _If you like._ Okay, my bachelor pal…”

Liam chuckles and closes his eyes, enjoying the warmth of the fire and the comfort of Louis’ touch.

“What I like about Payno…” Louis says, and then hums like he’s thinking. “He’s very cute. I like all the little faces he makes.”

“Oi, what faces?”

“All your little expressions. You’re very expressive.”

“Right... go on.”

“I like how you think. You think so big picture…” Louis drums his fingers on Liam’s chest and it tickles him; he laughs. “I like how expansive you are. I like how you see, like, wide and far.”

“This is much more specific than mine,” Liam murmurs. “I’m feeling upstaged.”

“Haven’t even finished yet!”

“Okay, cheeky,” Liam says. He’s smiling.

“You’re handsome. I like your muscles.” Louis sets the lube aside and squeezes Liam’s bicep. Liam flexes for him. “I like how much you worry about me. I like that you know how I tick. I like that you didn’t put up with my shit when we first met. I love how you take care of me, ‘n buy me band-aids ’n’all that... I like how much you like my bum.”

Liam opens his eyes and reaches up for Louis, pulling him close. They snog for a long time, just enjoying each other’s touch. Liam feels that the bubble that protected their relationship in its infancy is now well and fully gone, but that they’ve begun to lay brickwork in its place for something better.

Louis climbs on top of Liam to kiss him better. Liam slides his hand over Louis’ waist and over the round swell of his arse, grabbing a handful of it. Louis moans into his mouth and rocks his hips against Liam.

“Sorry I’m not harder,” Liam says breathily.

“I have an idea,” Louis says, and he pulls back from Liam and grins at him wickedly. “Could I finger you a little?”

Liam feels a jolt in his chest. Louis keeps smiling at him, stroking his arm. Liam feels like a spotlight has just hit him, exposing him; at the same time arousal burns in his veins. Louis’ face looks more intense than usual, sculpted by shadows from the strange lighting of the room. His cheekbones and jaw are sharp; his hooded eyes bore into Liam’s. He looks commanding.

Liam leans his head back against the carpet, looking up at the ceiling. His mouth is dry. Finally, he says, “Yeah. You could do that.”

“Nice,” Louis whispers, his voice raspy. “You showered?”

“Yeah,” Liam says softly. “I showered.”

Louis moves backward off of him and undoes his belt, and then pulling his boxer briefs off, allowing his cock to spring free.

Louis goes down on him immediately, to Liam's great gratification. Louis’ mouth isn't very big, and he never takes Liam very deep, but he's a truly filthy cocksucker and the theatrical sort that makes plenty of noise and constantly plays with your balls.

This time Louis’ hand bypasses his balls and tickles his arsehole. Liam jerks at the touch and Louis reassures him by laying a hand over his chest and sucking at him harder, licking a stripe up the side and nuzzling the tip. Liam lets out a groan of satisfaction. His fingers clench on the carpet and then he raises one hand and finds Louis’ beautiful thick arse, then slides down to one of his wonderful thighs.

His eyes are closed, and he hears Louis flick off the top of the lube bottle and the wheezing sound of him squeezing it into his hand.

“God, we've used a lot of this,” Louis comments, and flicks his tongue over Liam's tip.

“We -- _ah, God_ \-- we have a lot of sex, Tommo.”

“I know, it's fantastic. You know Eleanor and I weren't having _any_ at the end? Like for months ‘n months...”

Liam feels a familiar sting.

“If I can't finger you and talk about Sophia, then vice versa,” Liam says, surprising himself. He hadn't meant to say that at all.

Louis just laughs. “Fair ‘nough.”

Liam swallows. “Sorry. I feel so stupid lately,” he mutters.

“You’re just vulnerable,” Louis tells him, looking up from his cock and into his face. Liam feels a hot stab in his stomach at the sight of Louis’ red lips and flushed cheeks.

“I'll make you feel good, don't worry,” Louis murmurs, and he cracks a smile that’s like the sun.

“Go on, then,” Liam murmurs, tipping his head back again and giving himself over to the sweet sensation of a mouth on his cock.

“All I meant, Payno,” Louis says, in his sweet voice, “was I forgot for a while there, how nice it is to have sex with somebody you're actually in love with, y’know?”

Liam smiles. “Good save.”

Louis chuckles and goes back down on him again, and then slides a lubed finger against Liam's arse. Liam sucks in a breath of air.

Louis pushes one finger very slightly into him, keeps licking at Liam's cock. He's rock hard now. All he can think about is coming, whether it's with a hand wrapped around him or inside the tight clench of Louis.

The finger goes further inside of him; it feels strange and wrong in a good way, like it always does. He wants Louis to trespass him, to hop the fences of his inhibitions and spray paint all inside of him _LOUIS WAS HERE_.

Then Louis strokes his prostate and Liam gasps. It's a pleasant sensation, totally different from having your cock stimulated; more like an itch is being scratched. He craves more of Louis's touch, and encourages him by rolling his hips under him. Louis gives him a sly little grin and slides another finger in. Liam is profoundly tight. He doesn't think he could fit another, but he doesn't want to. This is all he needs.

Louis leans down and kisses him. Liam sucks at Louis’ lips, his pretty and wicked little mouth. If anything, the presence of Louis' fingers just makes him want to be in Louis more. He's sweating from arousal and the fire; Louis moves his hand over Liam's damp chest, tweaking his nipple. Liam feels another pulse of arousal at his touch. His cock is leaking now, pressed between them as Louis’ fingers continue to work at him.

“You're so hard,” Louis purrs.

Liam is overcome by a heady rush of desire and groans.

“How bad do you wanna fuck me?” Louis taunts him.

Liam drags his hands over Louis’ curvy little body. “Like mad,” he says, aching for him.

Louis’ fingers curl inward and Liam moans, arching his back.

The fingers slide out of him and Liam feels another stab of arousal at the stimulation of muscles inside him as they do.

Louis grabs his wrist with slick fingers and guides two of Liam’s own fingers into his mouth, the pointer and the middle, and he sucks on them as he looks into Liam’s eyes. Liam sucks in air and rolls his shoulders back.

He sits up and meets Louis’ lips; Louis presses eager kisses all over his face, to his forehead and the hollow of his cheek and the bow of his mouth.

Louis draws Liam’s hand downward and squeezes lube into it. Liam breathes in slowly, trying to control his erection. He presses his mouth to Louis’ collarbone and wraps an arm around his waist as he presses a finger into Louis. Louis drapes his arms around Liam’s shoulders, caressing the back of his head, and squeezes Liam’s waist with his thighs, murmuring his name.

Louis is a work of art to him, looking like this; his light eyes dark with lust, mouth messy with precome and red from friction, his dark hair mussed from Liam’s hands and falling across his flushed face. His features are as sharp and delicate as ever, but his face is slightly fuller in a way that Liam feels relief at seeing. For a while, as each of their stress levels had peaked, their weight had fluctuated in opposite directions -- Louis was wire-thin and gaunt as Liam was chunkier with a puffy face that belied his excessive drinking. Lately they look more like their old selves, which Liam knows Louis isn’t always comfortable with. Louis is constantly looking for control, and when he can’t find it he turns that need inward on himself. Liam has been hoping for months now that the nature of their relationship, of the pressure cooker that is the closet, won’t drive Louis back to old habits -- to a revival of the clawing, angry, starving alley cat he was for much of 2013 and 2014. It reassures him to press his hands to the soft peaks and valleys of Louis’ body, to kiss and nuzzle him and find no hungry hollows under his cheekbones.

He’s almost intolerably aroused as he slides another finger into Louis.

“I might come if we don’t start soon,” he murmurs, embarrassed as usual at how easily he’s led over the edge.

“It’s okay, lad,” Louis says breathlessly. “I’m ready. Go on, get in.”

Liam lays him down on the rug in front of the fire. Louis slides his hands over Liam’s back as Liam situates himself between his legs. Liam likes the feel of his quick little hands; he loves it even more when Louis sinks his nails into his skin. His brain has firmly linked the hot sting of the skin on his back opening to the immense pleasure of being inside of Louis, the almost holy tightness of him.

Louis spreads his legs wide for Liam, gazing up at him with that self-satisfied little look of his, like he’s relishing in how desperately Liam wants him. Liam is dripping precome onto both of them and is woozy from the rushing of blood away from his head. He sees Louis is hard and begins to play with him as he bends over him, one hand on the side of his ribcage.

“You look so good,” he says to him, his voice sounding impossibly deep in his own ears. He guides his cock into Louis, the action one of habit by now, and he lets out a long pleased sigh as he feels the pressure of Louis around him. Louis sucks in air and then lets it out in a soft, whining moan that penetrates into Liam’s every pore. He can barely see straight as he slides the rest of the way in.

“Feel so good, Louis, Christ…”

“Shush,” Louis says, with a hiccupy groan, “just fuck me, fuck me --”

He does what Liam had been wanting and claws down his lower back. Liam gives a satisfied groan of his own and begins to thrust into Louis, breathing out heavily through his nose. Louis does feel incredible, and is laid out gorgeously on the floor in front of him, his wonderful body gamely accepting Liam’s every thrust with his hips rolling luxuriously in response. He slides one hand into Liam’s hair, tugging it hard to Liam’s delight, and the other grips the carpet powerfully.

Liam begins to stroke Louis’ cock as he fucks him, leading to longer, louder and better noises from Louis. He’s extremely vocal when being fucked; Liam has to concentrate every ounce of his willpower on not coming, though he wants to badly.

“Spank me,” Louis says throatily.

“Huh?” Liam says, his thrusts never slowing.

He watches Louis’ adam’s apple bob lazily in his throat as he says again, “Spank me. After you’ve come.”

His cock throbs. “Tommo, Christ,” Liam says, gritting his teeth. “Okay, okay…”

“Are you having a hard -- _Oh_ \--” Louis gasps, his hands grasping at Liam’s waist, and Liam figures he must have gotten in a good stab at his prostate. “Are you having a hard time?”

“You could say that,” Liam says, and Louis laughs a tinkling little laugh.

“I mean with not coming,” he says.

“Oh, yeah,” Liam says, groaning. Louis reaches up and runs his fingers through Liam’s hair. “It’s terrible.”

“Then go on ‘n come, love, I’d like to kiss you.”

After a few moments Liam does so with a great sigh, the muscles in his pelvis contracting pleasantly and blissful ecstasy spreading outward from his cock. He and Louis readjust so they can lie on their sides and look at each other without him pulling out just yet. Louis’ soft inner thigh is pressed against his waist and he runs his hand up and down it; Louis jerks slightly in ticklishness, then laughs. Liam kisses Louis’ nose as he squeezes his thigh in his hand, then slides his palm to rest in the dip of Louis’ waist.

“You _would_ like to spank me, aye?” Louis murmurs.

Liam thinks of Louis’ thick arse moving under his palm, of the pink mark that would blossom up, the sounds Louis would make. He thinks of how much he hates hurting Louis, but how much Louis would like it.

“Yeah,” he says regretfully.

“You know you can do whatever you like to me, Payno,” Louis says, stroking his face. “Within reason. I trust you.”

“I don’t want to do whatever I like,” Liam confesses. “I want to do whatever _you_ like.”

Louis grins. “I’d like you to spank me,” he says.

Liam pulls out of him, very gently as he’s bound to be sensitive from getting fucked twice in a few days, and Louis rolls onto his front and then steadies himself on his knees and elbows, his lats hard and flexed.

Liam trails a hand down the length of him, admiring his body and the uninterrupted view of the tramp stamp Louis got for him. The sight of Louis and the smell of him is bewitching in a way that’s connected less to his cock and more to his heart.

“You’re perfect,” he murmurs out of habit.

“So slap my arse, then,” Louis grumbles in response. Liam laughs.

Liam starts off gentle, giving him a light, teasing slap. Louis sighs in frustration.

“Harder, Payno, _much_ harder…”

Liam bites his lip. “I won’t hurt you?”

Louis laughs. “You don’t really get this, do you?”

Liam hits him harder, making Louis groan. His spent and limp cock twitches in response to the sound..

“Go on,” Louis urges him.

Liam is sweating from the exertion of sex and the heat of the dying fire. “Do you just not want to be able to sit down at all tomorrow, Tommo?”

“Yes, I’d like to lie down all day and make you bring me food in bed, you arse fetishist.”

“I think you’ve got a fetish for your _own_ bum, lad,” Liam says, fondly laughing. He gives Louis another smack and Louis gasps sharply.

“Touch me,” Louis demands. Liam complies, his hand sliding over Louis’ dripping rock-hard cock and beginning a rhythm of stroking. Louis gives a shaky sigh.

“What bum fetish?” he adds.

“For starters, you do love to be fucked quite a bit.”

“Yeah? Feels bloody good. You should try it sometime.”

“I’ll get there...”

He hits Louis, genuinely hard for the first time, and Louis lets out a long whine, luxuriating out into a catlike posture with his tattooed arms stretched out on the carpet in front of him and his arse raised to Liam. The desire to fuck him again flashes in Liam, but he’s still nowhere near hard and is quite tired to boot. He wants to spoon Louis in his large comfortable bed upstairs, cocooned in the bedding together.

Louis’ arse is pink and Liam’s hand aches.

“You’re going to give me carpal tunnel,” he grumbles fondly.

“One more,” Louis says, his voice low and raspy. “I’m about to come, anyway.”

Liam’s hand gives Louis’ cock more careful, practised attention. Louis’ sinewy back and shoulder muscles move under his skin. Liam watches, rapturous. 

He winds up for one more slap and lands it hard, his palm stinging and Louis sucking in air in response. His arse is a pleasure to slap; he’s got plenty of cushion for the blows.

Liam pushes on Louis’ hip and Louis turns his head to look at him curiously.

“Lie on your back,” Liam insists, and Louis does, wincing as his arse connects with the floor.

He jerks Louis off the rest of the way, and Louis closes his eyes as he does, lazily enjoying Liam’s touch. When he comes, quite a lot of it gets on Liam’s fingers. The rest of it splatters over Louis’ stomach.

Louis opens his eyes half-lidded and watches Liam, looking satisfied and mildly curious. Liam sticks his hand in his mouth and starts licking the come off of it, enjoying the bitter taste.

“Isn’t that the hand you fingered me with?” Louis murmurs, the corners of his lips turning upward.

“I believe it is,” Liam says, grinning at him.

“God, we’re disgusting,” Louis says appreciatively. “Can you carry me like you did in Hawaii? I don’t think I can make it upstairs.”

“That’s what the elevators are for, Tommo. But I’ll help you up.”

The TV, still glowing with his abandoned game of Uncharted, catches in his peripheral vision as he pulls Louis to his feet. Louis staggers and collapses against the breadth of him. Liam doesn’t notice their difference in heights often, but he does now as Louis’ fringe brushes his bottom lip. He holds Louis to him and kisses his sweaty forehead.

Louis rolls his eyes. “You daft old romantic,” he says, a little accusatory, but mostly fond. His torso is pressed to Liam’s, smearing spunk over both their stomachs. “So do you understand at all how much I love you, Payno? Who else would I ask to fuck me balls-deep and spank my arse?”

“Nobody,” Liam murmurs. His heart feels light.

“Nobody, that’s right,” Louis says firmly, and kisses him. “Wazzock.”

“Let’s get us to bed,” Liam says, smiling. He slides an arm over his waist and leads him out.

 

/

 

Louis wakes the next morning, achey but happier than he's been in days. He can hear Liam washing up in the bathroom. Sunlight pours through Liam's filmy white curtains; in the gaps between them Louis can see the tennis court and the pool, and behind them the rolling green hills of Surrey.

“So where's breakfast,” he yells to no one in particular. Watson comes barreling into the room and leaps onto the massive circular bed, licking Louis’ cheek. Louis grins and bats him away.

Liam opens the door a crack. Half his face is white with shaving cream. “You tell me, Tommo,” he calls back.

“Oh, having a shave, are you?” Louis says.

“Just trimming it up a bit.”

“Shave it all off,” Louis says, stretching his arms back and resting them under his head. “Then I'll have the most beard and I'll be the boss of you.”

Liam laughs fondly. “In what? The band? Life?”

“All areas.”

“I believe that's already the case, lad.”

“Well, good, now we'll have visual proof.”

Liam finishes up and clinks his razor against the sink. “You want proof?” he says, and turns his back to Louis. He's shirtless, and Louis can see all the nail marks he left last night.

He winces. “Least no hickeys this time.”

“I’d prefer a hickey,” Liam says. “I _like_ a hickey.”

He's smiling widely and looks quite fit in the soft light. Louis beckons him over and he climbs onto the bed, settling under Louis’s arm and splaying his own arm out across Louis’ chest. Louis glides a finger over his chevrons. Watson looks at them and whines jealously.

“That can be arranged,” Louis says. “How about we play some tennis, and I'll give you a secret hickey for every point you score on me.”

“Excellent idea, as you're rubbish at tennis.”

“Am not!” Louis protests. “It's just strength and footwork, it's like footie with your hands.”

“If that were true,” Liam whispers conspiratorially, “you'd think you'd be able to beat me.”

“Prick. The sun was in my eyes, last time.”

“I've got visors.”

“When have I seen you in a visor?”

“I'm sure you have. I'm quite cute in them.”

Louis smiles. “I don't doubt that.”

He picks up his phone and glances at it. He scrolls through an arseload of texts before he finds Harry, who's sent him a link to a Sun article with photos of him and Kylie.

“So… can we just camp out here for a while?” Louis says mildly.

“That was one hundred percent my plan,” Liam murmurs, lips pressed to the side of Louis’ chest.

The headline says ONE DIRECTION’S LOUIS TOMLINSON LOCKS LIPS WITH KYLIE JENNER ON AZOFF YACHT.

The article itself is a load of nonsense, quoting a lot of anonymous sources. There's no rep comment.

“Ooh, here's a funny bit,” Louis says. He reads out loud to Liam, “ _One wonders if this love connection has bigwigs at Modest nervous, as the Kardashians are close with the Azoffs and the encounter took place on Jeff Azoff’s boat. If bandleader Tomlinson jumps ship as Styles did, it could spell curtains for Modest’s future in shaping One Direction or any of the boys’ solo careers_.”

“One wonders, does one?” Liam says, in a mocking sage tone. He doesn't seem bothered by the content of the story, which reassures Louis.

“Maybe I'll print this one out for when I renegotiate my contract,” Louis says, chuckling.

Harry's also texted him, _all okay on the home front?_

Louis sends him a thumbs up emoji, which he sees within a minute. He gets a prayer hands in response.

“So I gather there's no mention of me,” Liam says.

Louis does some fast Googling.

“No,” he says after a moment. “I don't think the press even knew you were there.”

Liam smiles. It's wan and fleeting, but it's a smile all the same.

“We pulled a fast one, then,” he says.

Louis strokes Liam's arm. “Seems we have, Payno.”

He sees his mum has texted him as well. _Is this fake kardashian nonsense what ive got to look forward to now?_ she says.

 _Not for long_ , he texts back.

“Kiss me,” he tells Liam.

Liam sits up and obliges him. They kiss slowly and tenderly as the May breeze blows through the window, tickling the hair on Louis’ arms. He holds onto Liam tightly, wanting to be crushed protectively under Liam's chest and arms, wanting to be steadied and anchored.

“We can do this,” Louis says, breaking away from his lips by less than an inch.

Liam breathes in and out, then nods.

“Course we can,” he says, and he strokes Louis’ face. Louis reaches up and intertwines their fingers.

Liam draws back and looks at him, his brown eyes round and bright.

“We can do anything,” he says, and as deluded as it sounds, Louis knows it's true.

In spite of everything, that’s somehow always stayed true.


End file.
